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AN ARGUMENT 



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PERPETUITY OF THE SABBATH. 



^^-i >^.^ -i'* 

BY REV. A^ A. PHELPS. 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY D. S. KING, 

32 Washington Street. 

1841. 









Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1841, 

By D, S. King, 

In the Clerk^s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



oirr 

BBRTRAM SMITH 

SEP f 8 1993 



STEREOTYPED AT THE 
BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 



CO 



INTRODUCTION. 



The following Argument in defence of the 
Sabbath was called forth by the discussions of 
the late ** Church, Ministry, and Sabbath Conven- 
tion," so termed, in this city. A wish has been 
repeatedly expressed that it should be written out 
for publication. This has been done — but amid 
a pressure of other duties which has subjected 
the author to frequent interruptions, much conse- 
quent delay, and some serious disadvantages in 
its accomplishment. In writing it out, some 
trains of thought have been introduced which 
were not presented in the Convention, and some, 
which were then merely hinted at, have been 
carried out. The Argument differs from the 
ordinary discussions of the subject, in that its 
strength is mainly expended on two points, which, 
in the author's judgment, are usually despatched 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

too summarily, and therefore not satisfactorily, but 
which, after all, are the strong points of the case 
on the part of our opponents. Those points are, 
first, their- argument to prove that the Sabbath 
was originally instituted in the wilderness ; and, 
second, our argument to prove a divine warrant 
for the change of the day. To make the truth 
on these points clear, has been a leading design 
in the ensuing discussion. The Argument, such 
as it is, is now given to the public, in the hope 
that it may help to satisfy the inquiring, to relieve 
the doubting, to decide the wavering, to confirm 
the weak, and to promote in all a more intelligent 
and better observance of the Lord's Day. 

THE AUTHOR. 
Boston, Feb. 12, 1841. 



INDEX 



THE SABBATH AS AN INSTITUTION. 

CHAP. I. 
Preliminary Remarks, 7 

CHAP. H. 
Explanation of Terms, 16 

CHAP. HI. 
The Sabbath at Creation, 19 

CHAP. IV. 
The Sabbath in the Patriarchal Age, 31 

CHAP. V. 
The Sabbath in Egypt, 41 

CHAP. VI. 
The Sabbath in the Wilderness, 57 

CHAP. VII. 
The Sabbath a Sign, 73 

CHAP. VIII. 

The Argument recapitulated and closed, 82 

1# 



6 INDEX. 



CHANGE OF THE DAY. 

CHAP. IX. 
Statement of the Question, and Preliminary 

Remarks, 96 

CHAP. X. 
Nature of the Argument for a Change of 
THE Day, 104 

CHAP. XI. 
Christ's Sanction of the Sabbath and its 

Change, 107 

CHAP. XII. 
The Sanction of the Apostles and the Prim- 
itive Church, 124 

CHAP. XIII. 
The Argument continued, 140 

CHAP. XIV. 
The Proof-Texts of Opponents, 149 

CHAP. XV. 
The Testimony of Ecclesiastical History, ....159 



THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 

The Sabbath — This is the topic in discussion. 
But what is the question at issue in respect to it ? 
Till this is ascertained, we can make do progress in 
the discussion. 1 will attempt to state it. And first, 
1 will state what it is not.* 

1. It is not whether men ought to be holy every 
day ; to have " Holiness to the Lord '' written on all 
they have and are ; to critj their religion into their 
business, so as .to make their business part of their 
religion, and do all they do to the glory of God, and 
in this sense keep ail days holy; for in this, the 
friends and the opponents of the Sabbath are agreed. 
At all events, no friends of the Sabbath deny it. 
True, their opponents sometimes say they do. Nay, 
they even insist, at times, that their zeal for the ob- 
servance of one day in seven, as holy, is ^drtually that 
they may have the freer license to sin during the re- 
mainder of the week. But it is not so. Such repre- 

* The arguments noticed in tliis cliapter were all urged in the 
Convention. 



8 THE SABBATH. 

sentatjons are injurious and false. What friend of 
the Sabbath, if a minister, does not preach that men 
ought to be holy every day and every where, as well 
as on the Sabbath and in the sanctuary ? And when 
he urges the observance of one day in seven as a 
Sabbath, who is there, be he minister or layman, that 
does not do it, in order that, by carrying its hallowing 
instructions and influences with them into the or- 
dinary avocations of life, men may be led to serve 
God in ihem as well as in their religious duties, and 
so be made the more holy, rather than the less so, 
during the other six days of tlie week ? And who, 
that kiiows any thing of a real observance of the Sab- 
batlj, does not know b}^ experience, that such are its 
actual tendency and effect? Or if, in any case, the 
tendency and effect of its observance seem otherwise, 
and men do cast its restraints behind them, and take 
occasion from it to sin the more the moment they 
enter on the v/eek, who are they that do it ? The 
men that honestly advocate and keep the Sabbath, or 
those only that play the hypocrite in regard to it ? The 
men to whom the Sabbath is a delight, and the holy 
of the Lord lionorable, or those to whom it is a yoke, 
and a " burden," and a curse, and who in their hearts 
ivish there ivere nonc'^ The latter, plainly. Be this, 
however, as it may, the (juestion at issue between the 
friends and opponents of the Sabbath is not whether 
men ought to serve God always and every where, 
and so keep all days holy, — for this the friends of the 
Sabbath most fully believe and teach, ■ — but whether 
keeping all days holy, forbids the setting apart of 
one day in seven as a Sabbath ; i. e. as a day of rest 
from the ordinary avocations of life, and of special de- 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 



9 



votion to the duties of religion. And to pretend this, 
is to say that setting apart particular times to particu- 
lar duties, so that those duties may be the more or- 
derly and profitably discharged, is inconsistent with 
keeping all time holy ; whereas, in point of fact, it 
may be, and is, only a more effectual, as well as com- 
mon sense arrangement for this very end. 

2. The question touching the Sabbath is not 
whether Christ taught a higher and purer morality 
than Moses and the prophets. That he did, I know, is 
claimed. It is said in terms, that " the standard of 
morality under the gospel dispensation is infinitely 
higher than it was under the old ; " and the inference 
is, that the Sabbath is therefore now set aside. But 
the fact asserted admits of question — much more the 
inference. When one (Matt. xxii. 36 — 40) came to 
Christ with the inquir}^, " Master, which is the great 
commandment of the law," his answer was, " Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all -thy heait, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the 
first and great commandment. And the second is like 
unto it — Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'^ 
And then he added, ^-On these two commandments 
Jiang all the law and the prophets " — a plain declara- 
tion, that these two great requirements of supreme 
love to God and impartial love to man, covering, as 
they do, the whole field of obligation and duty, are 
not the revelation of a new acd higher standard, un- 
knovvTLi to Moses and the prophets, but a summary 
only of what they themselves had taught. Indeed, 
so true is this, that, on another occasion, (Blatt. vii. 
12,) when Christ g\'ive his disciples that golden rule, 
which in its v/ide sweep comprehends all obligation 



iO THE SABBATH. 

and duty, — "Therefore all things whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them," — so far from telling them that herein he gave 
them a higher and purer standard of morality than 
that of Moses and the prophets, he adds emphatically, 
" For this IS the law and the prophets " — nothing older 
and nothing newer, nothing more and nothing less, 
but the same identical thing itself If Christ's tes- 
timony, then, is to be received, he did not reveal nor 
enjoin a higher or a purer morality than did Moses 
and the prophets. Of course the Sabbath is not to 
be set aside on this ground. 

But admit, if you will, that he did reveal a new and 
higher morality, still the inference of no Sabbath does 
not follow ; for the question is, not whether Christ 
taught a higher and purer morality than Moses and 
the prophets, but did he teach one so high and so 
pure as to set aside the Sabbath? Admit it to be 
as elevated and pure as purity itself, does it therefore 
follow that to set apart one day in seven as a Sab- 
bath, — i. e. as a day of rest from the ordinary avoca- 
tions of life, and of special devotion to the duties of 
religion, — is no longer obligatory or proper ? To say 
so, brings us to the old absurdity again, viz. that to 
appropriate particular times to particular duties, for 
the sake of their more orderly and profitable dis- 
charge, is inconsistent with keeping ail time holy, 
or, what is the same, with the purity of the gospel ; 
or that it is at best a needless and profitless arrange- 
ment. And this is an absurdity so glaring that anti- 
Sabbath men themselves do not, and cannot, practise 
on it, — except in their religion. For they, as well 
as others, have their general arrangement of one time 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 11 

for the duties of the family, another for the duties of 
the farm, or the workshop, or the printing-office, and 
so on through the whole circle of regularly-returning 
duties. And can it be, that it is in religion only, that 
the appropriation of a particular time to particular 
duties is a needless and profitless arrangemenr, in- 
consistent alike with keeping all time holy, and with 
the elevated purity of the gospel — nay, a "burden " 
and a "yoke," from which Christ came to deliver us? 
By no means. Elevated and pure as is the morality 
Christ taught, it does not follow that it is so pure as 
to annihilate or set aside the observance of one day 
m seven as a Sabbath, or day of holy rest. That re- 
mains to be proved, not taken for granted. 

3. The question touching the Sabbath is not 
whether the law, or Sinai covenant, is done away 
in Christ, or in the gospel, or new covenant ; for in 
this the friends and opponents of the Sabbath are 
agreed. But it is, in what sense is the one done 
away by the other? Is it so done away as to set 
aside the Sabbath? That is the question. (1.) Is it 
done away as a means of justification ? Agreed. 
" Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no 
flesh be justified in his' sight," (Rom. iii. 20.) That, 
however, does not touch the question of the ob- 
servance of the Sabbath as a duty. The lav/, though 
not binding as a rule of justification, may be as a 
rule of duty, so that it may still be as much my duty 
to keep the Sabbath as it is to worship God. (2.) Is 
it, then, done away in Christ as a rule of duty ? It is so 
asserted ; but what saith the apostle ? — " Do we, then, 
make void the law" (as a rule of duty) "through 
faith?" (as the rule of justification.) (v. 28.) "God 



12 THE SABBATH. 

forbid. Yea, we ESTABLISH the law." Such is 
Paul's opinion. And why, indeed, should he have 
any other ? What room is there for pardon or justi- 
fication w"here there is no sin to be pardoned ? And 
what sin can there be where there is no law, or ex- 
isting obligation to be violated? And what law is 
there when the law is done away ? 

But admit that the law, as a rule of duty, is done 
away ; are we, then, no longer bound to love God or 
man, to abstain from idolatry, blasphemy, false wit- 
ness, theft, adultery, murder, and the like ? Are we 
absolved from obligation in respect to these matters 
as well as that of the Sabbath ? This is not pre- 
tended. But it is said that obligation, in these cases, is 
unchanging, growing out of the very nature, necessi- 
ties, and relations of man, and that, therefore, we are, 
in respect to them, "under law to Christ." Be it so. 
And how does it appear that we are not equally 
" under law^ to Christ " to keep the Sabbath ? This, 
at least, is the question ; and is a thing to be proved, 
not taken for granted. 

4. The question at issue is not whether the rites 
and ceremonies of the old economy were a shadow 
of good things to come, and are all fulfilled in Christ. 
For in this we are all agreed. But it is w^hether the 
Sabbath, any more than the marriage institution, or 
the command to honor parents, or every other com- 
mand of the decalogue, was a part of that shadow, 
and therefore done away in Christ, the substance. 
All agree that the shadow is done away ; but was the 
Sabbath a part of it ? That is the question, and is 
a matter to be proved, not assumed. 

5. The question at issue is not whether Christ 



PRELIMINARY ilEMAKKS. 13 

came to deliver us from the yoke and bm*deii of old 
rites and ceremonies; for this, too, all admit. But it 
is, whether the Sabbath, any more than the marriage 
institution, or the command to worship and serve 
God, was a part of that burden and yoke ? True, it 
is so claimed. The Sabbath, so far from being re- 
garded as a "delight," is set down by some as a 
burden, from whose intolerable pressure it was one 
great object of Christ to deliver us. All this, how- 
ever, is but begging the question. What proof is 
there that the Sabbath was a part of that biu'den ? 
To assume it, and then mfer, that because the burden 
is done away, the Sabbath is, is assumption, and noth- 
ing more. With the same propriety you may assume 
that marriage was a part of the burden, and then 
gravely infer, that, the burden being done away, mar- 
riage is done away too. The logic — if logic it can be 
called — is as good in one case as in the other. Indeed, 
as a matter of fact, some who have applied it to the 
Sabbath fii'st, have afterwards applied it to the mar- 
riage institution, and insisted, that "it is only in the 
view of the mind, and after the fashion of the world, 
that a person has any more right over a w^oman, after 
a certain ceremony is performed, than before" — that 
" God is about to put an end to all such mock, sham, 
and fictitious rights" — that the parties "ought to be 
left fi*ee to separate from each other; else what is 
the use to talk about people's having rights, seeing 
they are not allow^ed to exercise any in a matter the 
most important to their peace and welfare of any 
other, but are bond slaves?"^ — that "the righteous- 

"* Battle Axe, p. 19. 
2 



14 THE SABBATH. 

ness of the saints will cause those that possess it for 
the first time to love their neighbor as themselves, 
and act in accordance w^ith such love in all things," 
and that, so acting, "what one has is to another as 
his own. All things are common in the fullest sense 
of the words — wives and every thing else. No part 
of the price is kept back. None are suffered to want 
while another abounds." * — And that " when the will 
of God is done on earth, as it is in heaven, there will 
he no marriage. The marriage supper of the Lamb 
is a feast, at which every dish is free to ever^y giiesf'' f 

Such sentiments shock us. They shock, too, it is 
believed, the great body of those who reject the Sab- 
bath. Indeed, so manifestly do they " turn the grace 
of God into lasciviousness," that we can scarcely 
persuade ourselves that they are seriously entertained 
b}^ any. And yet it is notorious that they are. These, 
and worse than these, are the sentiments of the spir- 
itual or no-marriage Perfectionists. It is equally no- 
torious that the same processes of assumption and 
inference, and the same reasonings about burdens, 
and shadows, and entering into rest and the liberty 
of Christ, &c. &c., which lead the one to the re- 
jection of the Sabbath, the church, and the ministry, 
lead the other, and logically too, to the rejection of 
Sabbath, ordinances, church, ministry, marriage, Bible 
and all. Starting at the same point, and pursuing the 
same processes of reasoning, the one stop with the 
rejection of the Sabbath, the ministry, and the church, 
the others rush headlong, yet logically, to results that, 
under the garb of Christianity, strip Christianity of 
her essential elements, and make Christ little else 

^ Battle Axe; p. 13. f Ibid. p. 10. 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 15 

than a minister of sin. I repeat it, then, the question 
at issue in respect to the Sabbath, is not, whether the 
burden of old rites and ceremonies is done away, but 
is the Sabbatli a part of it? And this is a thing to 
be prov^ed, not assumed. 

6. The question is not whether it is our privilege 
and duty to have peace and joy in believing; to enter 
into rest; to become freemen in Christ Jesus; to 
stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ maketh free, 
and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage, 
&c. &LC.', for all this the friends of the Sabbath 
niost fully beheve and teach. But the question is, 
whether this peace, and joy, and rest, and hbertj, are 
the peace, and joy, and rest, and liberty, of doing 
without a Sabbath. That is the question. 

7. And finalh^, the question is not whether the 
letter (2 Cor. iii. 6 — 11) killeth while the spirit giveth 
life; nor whether the Jewish dispensation is done 
away by the Christian ; nor whether the Christian is 
so much more glorious than the other as to eclipse 
and throw it into the shade; for this, too, is clearly 
taught in the passage quoted and fully believed by 
the friends of the Sabbath. But the question is 
whether the Christian dispensation is so glorious as 
to dispense with the Sabbath. And this, as in all the 
other cases, is a matter to be proved, not assumed. 
Let it be well considered, then, that the inferences so 
confidently drav\'n to the non-existence of the Sab- 
bath, from the several premises now noticed, are, after 
all, mere assui.iptions. Of course they are all to be 
set aside at the outset, as having nothing to do with 
the question really at issue. This done, we may 
profitably proceed with the discussion. 



CHAPTER II. 

EXPLANATION OF TERMS. 

Ijs^ the discussion of every subject, much depends 
on a correct explanation or definition of terms. It is 
so in the present case. Some really seem to suppose 
that the friends of the Sabbath regard one day as 
intnnsically more holy than another, and that when 
they use the terms sacred, sanctified, holy, and Sah- 
hath, they do it with such an understanding of them. 
But is it so ? Learning, as they do, all they know of 
the Sabbath from the Bible, it is but fair to suppose 
that they use these terms in the same sense that the 
Bible does. What, then, is the Bible use of them ? 

1. Sanctified. This, in the Mosaic use of it, de- 
notes, among other things, " set apart specially to sa- 
cred or religious purposes." Thus (Lev. viii. 10 — 12) 
we are told that Moses took the anointing oil, and 
anointed the tabernacle, and all that was therein, and 
'^ sanctified ^^ them; and sprinkled the altar and all his 
vessels, to " sanctify " them — not that the materials 
of which these things were made were intrinsically 
more holy than the same materials wrought into other 
vessels ; nor that the vessels themselves were made 
intrinsically more holy by this act of consecration ; 
but only that they were thus set apart specially and 
exclusively to the services of religion. In like man- 
ner, also, " he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's 



EXPLANATION OF TERMS. 17 

head, and anointed him, to sanctify him ;" i. e. to set 
him apart to the services of rehgion — not that he was 
thereby made intrinsically more holy than before. 
In the same sense, when they came up out of Egypt, 
the Israelites were commanded (Ex. xiii. 2) to "sanc- 
tify," or (v. 12) " set apart unto the Lord," all the first- 
born of man and beast — the beasts for sacrifice and 
the men for the religious services of the altar and 
the temple. In Joel also (i. 14 ; ii. 15) the priests are 
called upon to "sanctify a fast, call a solemn assem- 
bly," &c. ; i. e. obviously, to appoint or set apart a time 
lor that religious service. And in the same sense^ 
beyond ail question, it is said, (Gen. ii. 3,) "God 
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it;" i. e. set 
it apart specially to religious purposes. 

2. Holy. This is used in the same sense with the 
term sanctified. Thus the "holy garments" (Ex. 
xxviii. 2) of Aaron and his sons are not garments 
intrinsically more holy than others, but merely gar- 
ments made and set apart specially for the religious 
services of the altar and temple. So, when it is said, 
(Ex. xvi. 23,) "To-morrow is the rest of the holy 
Sabbath," the meaning is, not that the morrow is 
intrinsically more holy than any other day, but that 
it is the day set apart from the ordinary avocations 
^of life to the purposes of religious rest, improv^ement, 
and worship. Literally translated, the passage reads, 
"To-morrow is the rest, the rest holy (Sabbath-^wo- 
desh) unto the Lord." And this gives you its true 
meaniilg, viz. To-morrow is the rest, the rest that 
is holy; i. e. consecrated, or set apart to the Lord. 
So, m the account of the original institution of the 
Sabbath, (Gen. ii. 3,) the term which is translated 
2# 



18 THE SABBATH. 

sanctified is yeJcaddesh, and means, literally, he caused 
it to be holy ; i. e. he hallowed oi* set it apart to the 
purposes of religion. 

3. Sabbath, This term, in view of what has just 
been said, is readily understood. Literally, it means 
merely rest. Applied to a particular period of time 
set apart as holy, as of a day, it means a day set 
apart to rest from the ordinary avocations of life, and 
specially devoted to the duties of religious instruction, 
improvement, and worship. The Sabbath, then, as an 
institution, is a season of rest, holy or consecrated 
to the Lord. It consists of two parts, the Sabbath or 
holy rest, and the time or day set apart for it. This 
distinction is clearly recognized in the account of its 
original institution, God (Gen. ii. 2) rested (sabba- 
tized) on the seventh day ; and then (v. 3) he " sanc- 
tified," or set that day apart, as the day for sabbati- 
zing, " because that in it he had rested," (sabbatized.) 
The sabbatizing or holy resting is therefore one thing; 
the particular day set apart for it is another. The 
particular day may therefore be changed, as from the 
seventh to the first day of the week, and yet the in- 
stitution itself, as a season of holy rest consecrated to 
the services of religion, remain unchanged. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SABBATH AT CREATION. 

The question, then, or rather questions, at issue in 
this discussion, are these — 1. Is the Sabbath, as an 
institution, perpetually binding on men P 2. Has any 
particular day been set apart, by divine appointment, 
for its observance ? and if so, what day is it ? 

Is THE Sabbath perpetually binding on men? 

It will be my object to show that it is. 

1. Its perpetual obligation is manifest from its 
original institution. Like marriage, it was instituted 
at creation, and instituted, not for the Jew alone, nor 
for the Greek, nor for any particular age or cation, 
but for man — the race; to live, therefore, like the 
marriage institution, while the race, in its present 
state of being, lives ; and to be binding in its obser- 
vance, while there is such a race to observe it. This 
is manifest from the inspired record. According to 
that, the fii'st period of creation (Gen. i. 1 — 5) brought 
forth the shapeless mass of chaos, and separated the 
darkness from the light, and gave being to Day and 
Night. The second (vs. 6 — 8) gave the firmament, 
and separated the waters which were beneath from 
those which were above it. The third (vs. 9 — 13) 
gathered the waters that were under the firmament 
into seas, brou^ght forth the earth, clothed it with the 
tender grass, and the herb, and tree, and made it Ln- 



30 THE SABBATH 

stinct every where with vegetable life and beauty. 
The fourth (vs. 14 — 19) studded the firmament with 
greater and lesser lights, to divide the day from the 
night, and to be for signs and for seasons, and for 
days and years. The fifth (vs. 20 — ^23) filled the sea 
and air with their appropriate inhabitants, and made 
them instinct with animal life in all its myriad forms. 
The sixth (vs. 24 — 31) peopled the eai'th with every 
living creature, each after his kind; gave man his 
being, in the image of God, and male and female; 
then blessed, and bade him multiply, and replenish 
and subdue the earth, and invested him with do- 
minion over bird, and beast, and fish, and herb, and 
tree. Tlius was creation ended. The great arrange- 
ments of day and night, of earth and seas, of seasons 
and years ; of vegetable and animal life, pervading 
earth, and sea, and air; of man in the conjugal rela- 
tionship, ("male and female created he them,") mul- 
tiplying and replenishing the earth, and swaying the 
sceptre of dominion over all, — these arrangensents 
were all completed. Nor will it be pretended that 
these were not, each and tM, permanent in their char- 
acter, and made originally, as they are nov/ continued^ 
not for man of any particular age or nation, but for 
man — the race. 

But there was one arrangement not completed. 
True, creation's w^ork was done. Existence, in all 
its varied forms of beauty and of life^ and up through 
all its myriad ranks to man, the image of his God 
and head of all, was thrown from its Creator's hand. 
And it was all very good. But how should this fair 
world, or man the head of it, be kept in fond re- 
membrance of its Author.^ how made to move in 



AT CREATION. 



21 



sweet attraction and harmony divine around its great 
Original? Man, the race, needed one arrangement 
more — a something, that, at regular and oft-return- 
ing periods, should stop him in the busy whii-l of 
life, and lift his thoughts to Him that gave, and, with- 
out ceasing, was to give to him, and all things else, 
their being and their all. What should that arrange- 
ment he ? And (Gen. ii. 2, 3) " God rested on the 
seventh day from all the work which he had made. 
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, 
because that in it he had rested from all his work.'' 
That gave the desired arrangement. God rested on 
the seventh day from his creating work, and dwelt 
in sweet complacency and holy joy on all that he had 
made. It was all ''very good;^^ and in holy contem- 
plation of it, holy satisfaction filled his mind — God 
felt satisfied. "On the seventh day (Ex. xxxi. 17) lie 
rested and was refreshed.^'' And because He rested tlien 
and was refreshed, he set that day apart for man, that, 
at each returning seventh period, he and his might 
rest from their six days' work, as God had done from 
his, and, resting, lift their thoughts in fond remem- 
brance and holy joy to God, their Maker, and be, 
(Ex. xxiii. r2,) like him, " reii-eshed." The one was 
manifestly the reason or occasion of the other. God 
rested and was refreshed on that day. Therefore he 
blessed and "sanctified,'' or set it apart, not for him- 
self, plainly, but for man to rest and be alike re- 
freshed. Nor was it for one age or nation merely, 
but for man in every age and every where. And 
being so, it was the arrangement needed, and 
fitted to hold the world in fond remembrance and 
sweet attraction to its Maker's throne. It was the 



22 THE SABBATH 

arrangement with which the circle of great and per- 
manent arrangements for man in the morning of his 
being was complete, and without which that circle 
was marvellously incomplete. Can there, then, be 
doubt that, in accordance with the obvious and literal 
import of the divine record, the Sabbath was insti- 
tuted, by God, at creation, and as an arrangement 
for the race, not for any particular portion of it ? 
Were not all the other arrangements, made and in- 
stituted at creation, made and instituted for the race ? 
Was not the arrangement of day and night for man 
— the race ? of earth and seas, for man — the race ? 
of seasons and years, for man — the race ? Of vege- 
table and animal life, pervading earth, air, and sea ; 
of man, in the conjugal relationship, or social state, 
multiplying, and replenishing and subduing the 
earth ; of man, wielding dominion over all the lower 
creation, — were not all these arrangements made and 
instituted for man — the race? Why, then, should 
the arrangement of the Sabbath be an exception ? 
Plainly it was not. It was instituted when they were 
instituted, and, like them, was designed to be as 
universal in its existence, and as perpetual in its ob- 
ligation, as the race itself Nay, it was the crowning 
arrangement of all. They looked rather to the wel- 
fare of the natural and the mortal of man ; this to the 
spiritual and immortal of him. 

Ohjcdion. But geology, it is said, has proved be- 
yond a doubt, that the days spoken of in the history 
of creation, were not such periods of twenty-four hours 
as we are familiar with, and which we now call days, 
but long and indefinite periods of time — periods of a 
thousand years or more ; and therefore that it is ab- 



AT CREATION. 33 

surd to speak of God's resting the seventh day, in the 
ordinary acceptation of tlie term, and then setting 
apart that day as a period of similar rest to man. 

Answer, This objection, to have any force, must 
assume, what some geologists do not maintain, — 
(1.) that all of the seven days in question were such 
long and indefinite periods, and (2.) that the last three, 
whether longer or shorter, were not made up of such 
days, weeks, &c., as we are now familiar with. Should 
it be admitted that the last three days (which were 
the days following the creation of the sun "to rule 
the day ") were days of the ordinary length, the ob- 
jection fails. Or, should it be admitted that these 
last days, though themselves long and indefinite 
periods, were made up, as such periods would be 
now, of ordinary days, weeks, &c., then also the ob- 
iection equally fails. For in both cases, the day that 
God blessed and sanctified, as he did it for man, and 
not for hunself, would be the ordinary day with 
which man was, and was to be, familiar. Meeting 
the objection, then, on the ground that it does and 
must assume, in order to have any force, I remark, 

1. Beasts and men were created on the sixth day. 
As man was made male and female, it is but fair to 
suppose that his creation occupied at least one half 
the time. And has geology proved that God was 
some five hundred years or more making man? 

2. The seventh day was, of course, man's first 
whole day upon the earth. And has geology proved 
that man's first whole day was a thousand or more 
years long? and this, while it freely admits, in 
agreement with the inspired record, that each of his 
after days consisted of only twenty-four hours ? 



24 THE SABBATH 

3. But be it that geology has proved all it claims 
of the first four periods or days ; has it proved the 
same of the three remaining periods? Has it proved 
that, after God had made the lights " to divide the 
day from the night, and to be for signs and for sea- 
sons, and for days and years," — the sun "to rule the 
da}^," and the moon " to rule the night," — and " set 
them in the firmament," and bade them do their 
work, — they did not do it then as they do it now^ ? 
Has it proved that the same heavenly bodies that 
now rule the days into periods of twenty-four hours 
each, and the years into periods of three hundred 
sixty- five days each, and regulate the seasons ac- 
cordingly, did not rule the days and years, and reg- 
ulate the seasons, in the same manner, and in obe- 
dience to the same laws, then ? Is it indeed so, that 
these same heavenly bodies, with their fixed and un- 
changing laws of attraction, were a thousand years or 
more in doing then v/hat they now do in twenty-four 
hours? And geology proved it! and, proving that, 
turned astronomer, and proved also that, far backward 
in the lapse of time, by some sudden shift or process 
gradual, the laws that govern the entire planetary 
system have all been changed, and so changed that 
results which used to be the product of a millenary 
of years are now the product of a few short hours ! 
Nay, verily, geology may adjust her difiiculties with 
the Bible about the meaning of a term ; but can she 
adjust the controversy between herself and Astron- 
omy ? Can she tell Astronomy when, and where, 
and how, the laws of the planetary system were so 
changed ? At what point of time, by what slow or 
sudden shift was it, that these mighty worlds (or the 



AT CREATION. 25 

eai'th as governed by them) were quickened in their 
flight, and made to do the work of a thousand years 
or more within the limits of a few short hours ? Will 
geology, or the objector, answer this? — Moreover, 
4. Does not the whole argument from geology 
rest on Tnere assumption ? True, the word " da}^," as 
used in the Mosaic account, will bear the construction 
put on it by geology ; but on one condition only. 
Like every other word, it is always to be understood 
in its common and proper acceptation, unless there 
be something in the connection in which it is used, 
or in the nature of the subject, to forbid it. In that 
case, and that only, it must be understood in some 
other sense ; and in what sense, the connection, or 
nature of the subject, or both together, must de- 
termine. Now, it is admitted that the geological 
sense of "an age," or "a long, indefinite period of 
time," is not the common and proper import of the 
term. Professor Silliman says,^ " It is agreed on all 
hands, that the Hebrew word here used for ' day,' al- 
though frequently used for time, usually signified 
a period of twenty-four hours." And it is obvious, 
and admitted too, that there is nothing in the con- 
nection in which the term is used in this case to 
demand a different signification. It is the nature of 
the subject alone that is supposed to demand it But 
how does this do it? Only in this way — "Here are 
certain geological results ; if these were produced 
by the same causes operating according to the same 
laws as at present, they could not have been pro- 
duced in twenty four hours, but must have been the 

* Suggestions relative to the Philosophy of Geology, &c., 
p. 107. 

3 



26 THE SABBATH 

product of a series of years. Hence the nature of 
the case compels us to put such construction on the 
term in question." True, if they were so produced. 
But what right has geology to assume this ? That 
she does assume it, is plain. Thus Professor S. 
says,^ " Although the materials (of the earth) were 
created by almighty Power, they were evidently left 
to the operation of physical laws " in the production 
of the various results. Hence, f " by surveying the 
causes that are still in full operation, the geological 
events that are now in progress, and the effects that 
are proceeding without impediment or delay, we 
thus discover^ that since the creation, as regards geo- 
logical causes, all things remain as they were ; no new 
code of physical laws has been enacted.^^ In this way, 
and this only, geology gets at her argument from the 
nature of the case. Ai'guing from the present to the 
past, she first assumes that " no new code of physical 
laws has been enacted" for the operation of "geologi 
cal causes," and then infers that geological events or 
effects which are the product of an age now were so 
at creation, and, therefore, that " day " in the Mosaic 
account must mean, not day in the ordinary sense, 
but an age, or long series of years. Nay, to meet cer- 
tain Scripture difficulties, and sustain herself in this 
inference, she modestly suggests that a new code of 
physical laws has been enacted to govern the action 
of astronomical causes, though not of geological. 
Her language is, J " As already suggested, the sun 
not being ordained to rule the day until the fourth of 
those periods, it is not certain that even after this 

* Suggestions, &e. p. 41. f Ibid. p. 86. | Ibid p. 110. 



AT CREATION. 27 

epoch, those early revolutions of the earth on its axis 
were as rapid as now ; for these might cease altogether, 
or be greatly hicreased in rapidity, without affecting 
the planetary relations of the earth with the sun and 
with the other members of the system." 

But what right has geology to all these assump- 
tions? Surely, "by surveying the (astronomical) 
causes that are still in full operation, the (astro- 
nomical) events that are noiv in progress, and the (as- 
tronomical) effects that are proceeding without im- 
pediment or delay, we thus discover, that since the 
creation, as regai'ds [astronomical) causes, all things 
remain as they were ; no new code of physical laivs 
has been enacted.^^ And the discovery is surely as 
real in this case as in the other; and, being real, 
what becomes of the inference about the meaning of 
the term " day," after the fourth period of creation ? 
And if geology may suggest such a change in the 
physical laws that govern the planetary system, and 
work out its astronomical results, wliy may not crit- 
icism suggest a similar change in the laws which 
regulate the action of geological causes in the pro- 
duction of their results? And if. she makes it, how 
can geology disprove it ? Here are certain geologi- 
cal results or effects that have come down to us from 
creation. Can geology prove that they are the prod- 
uct of the same causes as produce such results 
now ? or, that those causes, if the same, operated 
according to the same laws then as now ? How 
knows she that they may not have been the product 
of causes which, acting with creative energy, and 
having done their work as such, have now become 
extinct, or given place to other causes, the same in 



28 



THE SABBATH 



kind, if you will, but of different energy — causes 
that now act only with sustaining, not creative en- 
ergy? Why may not geological causes, having ac- 
complished their great end as creative causes, have 
lost as much of their original energy and rapidity of 
production, as she herself supposes astronomical 
causes to have gained ? A.nd in that event, why 
may not results which would be now the product of 
an age, have been then the product of a day ? 

Does geology tell us that the nature of the results 
is such as to preclude such a supposition ? that " the 
crystals and crystallized rocks, the entombed re- 
mains of animals and vegetables, from entire trees 
to lichens, fuci, and ferns, from the minutest shell- 
fish and microscopic animalculse to gigantic rep- 
tiles," &c., forbid it? in a word, that these results 
all look as if they were the product of long periods, 
just as now? Be it so. But suppose that among 
some of these ancient remains (pardon the supposi- 
tion) Adam and Eve should be found; would they 
not look as if they were made and grevv^ up to ma- 
turity just as men and women now do? But was it 
so? Were the "materials created by almighty 
Power," and then " evidently left to the operation of 
physical laws " in the production of them ? And if 
not, how will geology prove it so in regard to beasts, 
or birds, or fish, or reptiles, or rocks ? Why may 
not these have been flung from their Creator's hand 
full grown, as well as man ? Does geology say God 
does not make these things so now ? Nor does he 
make man so now. And if the manner of making 
them now is decisive of the manner of making them 
then, why is not the same true of the manner of 



AT CREATION. 29 

making man then ? Does geology say, that, from 
the necessity of the case, man must, in the first in- 
stance, be made full grown ? And how does it ap- 
pear that, from the same cause, every order of exist ^ 
ence, animate and manimate, must not also, at the 
first, be so made ? And w^hat, then, becomes of the 
argument from geological remains ? 

These questions are not intended to ridicule the 
geological argument, nor to say that it is without 
foundation, but only to show that it has its diiiicul- 
ties, and that these are such and so many as to forbid 
its being used very flippantly to disprove the institu- 
tion of the Sabbath at creation. 

But, 5. Admit all that geology claims, and still the 
objection is not valid. For, were the periods of cre- 
ation longer or shorter, geology does not deny that 
they were periods of time, and that they were so far 
equal and regularly-returning periods, as to be fitly 
represented by the regularly-returning days with 
which we are familiar. And this admitted, the whole 
force of the objection is gone. For, be the period in 
which God rested and was refreshed, a longer or a 
shorter one, it was the seventh period from the com- 
mencement of crea-tion. It answered to, and is fitly 
represented by, the shorter yet seventh daj^, with 
which man, the race, is and has been familiar, if not 
at the outset, yet through all the subsequent genera- 
tions of his being. When God therefore rested on 
his or creation's seventh period of time, and then, on 
that account, sanctified or set apart the seventh day 
for a similar rest to man, he set apart that period 
with which man, as a race, was, or was to be, familiar ; 

and which was, or was to be, to man, just what his 
3# 



30 THE SABBATH AT CREATION. 

own seventh period had been to himself. If the two 
periods were not then of the same identical length, 
the one was at least the fit representative of the 
other, and man, in resting on the one, was furnished 
with a fit emblem and a sweet memorial of God rest- 
ing from his work of creation on the other. Such a 
setting apart or sanctification of each returning sev- 
enth day, as a day of holy rest for man, from the 
creation downward, was therefore alike significant 
and proper. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SABBATH IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. 

The Bible, it is said, " contains no example of any 
man keeping a Sabbath before the time of Moses ; " * 
nor does it in any way make mention of a Sabbath 
from the creation to the giving of manna in the wil- 
derness — a period of two thousand five hundred 
years ; and how could this be, if it were during all 
that period an existing institution ? f 

This objection is made up of two parts, a fact 
asserted, and an inference from it. The fact as- 
serted is, that no mention is made of a Sabbath 
during the period in question; the inference is, 
therefore, at that time, there was no Sabbath. 

1. Suppose we admit the fact asserted; does the 
inference follow ? By no means. For, (1.) the history 
of that whole period is given in a single book and 
twelve chapters of another. If, then, there be no 
mention of the Sabbath in a history so brief, it is not 
surprising, nor is it any proof that it did not exist. 
But, (2.) the Sabbath is mentioned only five times in 
the Jewish Scriptures, prophetic and historical both, 
from the time of Moses to the return of the captivity 

* Grew, p. 3. 

t The argument, substaDtiaiJV; of Paley and all that class of 
writers. 



32 THE SABBATH 

— a period of one thousand years ; twice in prophe- 
cy, and three times in history. And, (3.) in the entire 
histories of Joshua, of the Judges, of Samuel, and 
of Saul, — a period of about live hundred years, — the 
Sabbath is not mentioned once. Had they no Sab- 
bath, then ? (4.) From Joshua to Jeremiah, a period 
of eight hundred years, not one word is said of cir- 
cumcision. Had they no circumcision, then ? In all 
these cases, the history is much more minute and full 
than in the other. If the silence of the record is 
conclusive in the one case, it is more so in the others. 
But is it conclusive ? Were the Jews without a Sab- 
bath from Josliua to David — a period of five hun- 
dred years? And without circumcision from Joshua 
to Jeremiah — a period of eight hundred? By no 
means. Moreover, Noah, we are told, (2 Pet. ii. 5,) 
was "a preacher of righteousness." But we have 
no record of what he preached. Did he therefore 
preach nothing ? But, 

2, I deny the fact asserted. It is not true that 
there is no mention of the Sabbath during the period 
in question. What are the facts ? We find at first a 
distinct record of its original institution, with the 
reasons for it, — a record as distinct as is that of the 
institution of marriage. Nor, from the record merely, 
is there any reason, in the one case more than in the 
other, to suppose that it is the record of an insti- 
tution fii'st established two thousand five hundred 
years after creation. So far as the record goes, it is 
in both cases the clear record of institutions estab- 
lished at creation. At the outset, then, the mention is 
distinct and clear. And being so, it is manifest that, 
subsequently, in so brief a history, we ought to ex- 



IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. 33 

pect only incidental allusions to it, if any, or such 
existing facts and occurrences as are in harmony 
with the supposition of its existence. And if we 
find such facts and occurrences or allusions, it is 
plain that we not only have a mention, but all the 
mention of its existence which the case requires. 
Nay, if these incidental allusions, and these existing 
facts and occurrences, are just what we should expect 
them to be on the supposition of a Sabbath, so that 
the theory or supposition of a Sabbath affords the 
only or even the better solution of their existence than 
any other, then in this fact we have the mention and 
the proof that the Sabbath was. And we have all 
the proof that science has that the sun is in the 
centre of the solar system. For it is only on the 
ground that the theory or supposition of the sun's 
being in the centre of the system affords, not the 
only, but a better solution merely of existing and oc- 
curring facts than any other theory, that science, with 
a Newton at its head, declares that to be the true 
theor}', and summons the assent of the scientific 
w^orld to the correctness of its decision. And why 
shall not the same proof, if it exist, be equally valid 
here ? Does such proof exist ? That is the question 
now before us. 

(1.) On the supposition of a Sabbath, we should ex- 
pect to find the patriarchs meeting together at stated 
times for religious worship, xlccordingly, the first dis- 
tinct record of religious worship is, (Gen. iv. 3,) that 
"in process of time," or, literally, "at the end of days," 
Cain and Abel brought their respective offerings to 
the Lord. And the fair and obvious import of the 
record is, that they did this as a matter of course. 



34 THE SABBATH 

when the regular or stated time for it came round. 
The next record (Gen. iv. 26) is, that at the birth of 
Enos, when his father, Seth, was one hundred and 
five years old, " began men to call upon the name of 
the Lord." What was this but public, social wor- 
ship ? The writer surely does not mean to inform 
us that there was no family worship before. For we 
have the record of that in the offerings of Cain and 
Abei. Nor can he mean to say that there was no 
private worship — that Adam and the pious Seth 
never prayed until the birth of Enos; i. e. until Seth 
was one hundred and five years old, and Adam two 
hundred and thirty-five. Surely Adam and Seth did 
not live all that time without private prayer. What 
can the passage mean, then, but that when Enos was 
born, — i. e. as soon as men began to multiply, — they 
then began to call on God in a public, social way ? 
But such worship must have had its mutually-agreed 
upon, or divinely-aj[ypoi?ifec? stated times. How else 
could it have been conducted ? ^ 

* Since the sitting- of the Convention, 1 have solicited the 
opinion of Professor Stuart, of Andover, concerning the proper 
translation and interpretation of several passages used in the 
discussion. The following is his view of the passage above : — 

^' Gen. iv. 26, ' Then began men to call/ etc._, or, ^ Then was 
a commencement made of calling,* etc., is rightly translated. 
The phrase, nfn'' DtS''"^ ■^'^^T)'-^ {liqra beshem Fe/iOL-a/^,) means, 
invocation upon the luiina of God, and this in a social and public 
manner. (Compare Gen. xii. 85 xiii. 4; xxi. So} xxvi. 25. Ps. 
cv. 1. Is. xii. 45 xli. 25.) It can mean neither less nor more 
here, as I think; than that public social worship then commenced, 
i. e. so soon as men began to multiply. The writer does not 
mean to intimate that the pious Seth did not praij, before his son 
was born to him; what can he intimate but social worship? 
When — is not said.'' 



IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. 35 

Further, in the subsequent history, we find that 
wlieuever the patriarchs pitched tiieir tents with a 
view to dwelhng for any length of time in a place, 
they always built an altar there for public worship. 
When Noah came out of the ark, (Gen. vii. 20,) the 
lirst thing was to "build an altar unto the Lord," and 
offer sacrifice. When Abraham originally entered 
Canaan, at his first stopping place, (Gen. xii. 7,) " there 
buiided he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto 
him." When he removed, (Gen. xii. 8,) and " pitched 
his tent" at a second place, "there he buiided an 
altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the 
Lord." On his return from Egypt, whither he had 
gone on account of a famine, he sojourned a season 
in Abimelech's country, and then came (Gen. xiii. 3, 4) 
to Bethel, " unto the place of the altar which he had 
made there at the first ; and there he called on the 
name of the Lord." When, on his separation from 
Lot, (Gen. xiii. 18,) he "removed his tent, and dwelt 
m the plain of Mamre, he built there an altar unto th^ 
Lord." Subsequently, (Gen. xxi. 33, and xxii. 19,) when 
he " dwelt at Beersheba," he made a similar arrange- 
ment for public worship there. The other patriarchs 
did the same. Wlien Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 6, 25) " dwelt 
in Gerar," he " buiided an altar there, and called upon 
the name of the Lord." Wlien Jacob (Gen. xxxiii. 
18, 20) "pitched his tent" before Shalem, "he erected 
there an altar, and called it God, the God of Israel." 
When, in that residence, some of his family (Gen. 
XXXV. 1 — 6) had fallen in with the surrounding idola- 
try, God directed him to go up to Bethel, and " dwell 
there, and make there an altar unto God;" and he 
did so. And, finally, when he took up his journey 



36 THE SABBATH 

with his family for Egypt, he stopped (Gen. xlvi. 1) at 
Beersheba, that long-established place of worship, 
and " offered sacrifices unto the God of his father." 
Now, what is all this but stated places for stated as 
well as occasional and special seasons of public 
worship ? Suppose a company of Christians, wan- 
dering, like the patriarchs and their tribes, from place 
to place. Wherever they stop for any length of time, 
and they are at liberty to do it, they build a church, 
and call upon the name of the Lord. Now, admit it 
to be a part of their religion to keep a Sabbath, and 
these churches are not only just what you would ex- 
pect to find, but they are all so many proofs of the 
actual existence and observance of that Sabbath 
For what can their design be, except to accommo- 
date the public, social, and stated, as well as occa 
sional worship of the whole company or tribe ? And 
what less than this could have been the design of the 
patriarchal altars ? What less can they argue than 
social, public worship, at stated times ? 

(2,) On the supposition of a Sabbath, as there is 
nothing in the nature of time itself to give one por- 
tion a preference over another, and the appointment 
of one period rather than another must be in this sense 
arbitrary, we should expect that, in deciding upon 
it, God would first select so large a portion as would 
best subserve the design of its consecration as a Sab- 
bath ; second, seize upon some fitting and ever-mem- 
orable occasion for the designation of the particular 
time ; and, third, shape their religious arrangements 
and observances so as to make them, as far as possible, 
so many mementos of it. And this is just what God, 
on the supposition in question, has done. A seventh 



IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. 37 

is such a portion of time. The close of creation was 
such an occasion. During the period in question, as 
well as subsequently, their religious arrangements 
and observances bore every where the impress of 
sevens, and were thus only so many mementos of a 
Sabbath, returning regularly on every seventh day. 
Thus, when Noah was about to go into the ark, the 
direction (Gen. vii. 2) was, " Of every clean beast," 
which were the beasts for sacrifice, " thou shalt take 
to thee by sevens." The mourning for Jacob was a 
mourning of seven days. That of Job's friends with 
him was seven days. The token or seal of Abra- 
ham's covenant with Abimelech was (Gen. xxi. 30) 
" seven ewe lambs." The sacrifice that Job offered 
for his friends when the days of his trial were ended, 
(Job xlii. 8,) was "seven bullocks and seven rams." 
And in later periods especially, almost every thing 
had the impress of sevens upon it. But, 

(3.) On the supposition of a Sabbath existing and 
observed during the patriarchal period, we should ex- 
pect to find a division of time into weeks. Was there 
such a division ? Nothing can be plainer. It stands 
out boldly on the face of the entire record. When 
God threatened the flood, (Gen. vii. 4,) the language is, 
"For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain." 
When Noah had entered the ark, and all was ready, 
(v. 10,) "it came to pass, after seven days, that the 
waters," &:c. When the flood had abated, and Noah 
had sent out the dove, and she returned, (viii. 10,) "he 
staid yet other seven days^"^ and sent her out again. 
And when she returned, (v. 12,) " he staid yet other 
seven days,"^^ and sent her out again. When Jacob 
negotiated for his wife, the stipulation of Laban 
4 



38 THE SABBATH 

(Gen. xxix. 27) was, "Fulfil her weeV^ of years ; and 
(v. 28) "Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week!''' When 
Jacob died, and Joseph, with his brethren, went up 
to the burial, (Gen. 1. 10,) "he made a mourning for 
his father seven daysJ^ When Job's friends came to 
sympathize with him in his affliction, (Job ii. 13,) 
" they sat down with him upon the ground seven days 
and seven nights,''^ When God sent the plague of 
blood on Egypt, (Ex. vii. 25,) ''seven days were ful- 
filled," and then it was removed. Can it be doubted, 
then, that during the period in question, there was 
the division of time into weeks, or periods of seven 
days ? But how came that division ? It was not a 
natural one, like that of months or years, but purely 
an artificial or conventional one. How came it then ? 
What gave it being ? What kept it in existence ? 
How can you explain it, except on tlie theory of an 
existing and regularly-returning Sabbath? Is not 
this, then, the true theory? 

Since writing the above, Professor Stuart has po- 
litely furnished me with the following, as the correct 
and literal translation of the passages above : — 

Gen. vii. 4, "For after days yet seven," etc. 

Gen. vii. 10, " And it came to pass after a heptade 
(seventh) of days." 

Gen. viii.lO, " And he waited yet a heptade of days, "etc. 

Gen. viii. 12, "And he waited yet a heptade of days," 
etc. Remark. — How came this heptade of days to be thus 
distinguished ? From what else could it spring, but from 
the original institution of the Sabbath ? 

Thus far the professor. The correctness of his 
view, as well as of that already taken, is rendered in- 



xN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. 39 

disputable by the followiDg considerations : — In Gen. 
xxix. 14, we are informed that Jacob abode with 
Laban "the space of a month." The original is 
Cr^' v:Hn [hodesh yamim,) Siud means, literally, " a new 
moon of days." The verse, literally translated, would 
be, " He abode with him a new moon of days." In 
Numbers xi. 20, 21, the form of expression in the 
original is the same. The Israelites were to eat flesh 
" a whole month ; " i. e. " a new moon of days." 
Here, then, we have this fact, that the new^ moon w^as 
to the Hebrew a measure and designation of time, so 
that when he wished to designate a month, his form 
of expression was, " a new moon of days." In the 
very terms, then, by which the Hebrew was wont to 
designate the month, we have the proof, (1.) of the 
existence, and, (2.) of the regular retm-n, of the new 
moon at such intervals of time as made it the natural, 
and, therefore, the appropriate measure and designa- 
tion of the period in question. But the Hebrew had 
another form of expressioa for another period of 
time. When he wished to describe the period which 
we call a week, he said (Gen. vii. 10 ; viii. 10, 12) 
D'D' r\ylilp (sMhath yamim ;) literally, a " heptade," or 
" seventh of days." What, now, is the fair and ne- 
cessary inference ? Why, that, els the new moon, by 
its existence and regular return, came to be the nat- 
ural measure and designation of its period of time, 
so the Sabbath, by its existence and regular return, 
came to be the artificial or conventional measure and 
designation of its period. Did the Hebrew, when he 
said " a new moon of days," mean a month ? Equally 
clear is it, that w^hen he said " a heptade," or " seventh 



40 THE SABBATH IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. 

of days," he meant a week. Did the Hebrew, when 
he so described the month, give proof, in the very 
form of his expression, of the existence and regular 
return of the new moon ? So, wPien he described the 
week as " a seventh of days," he gave equal proof of 
the existence and regular return of the Sabbath. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SABBATH IN EGYPT. 

If the Sabbath had an existence, and its observance 
were so important, why, it is asked, do we hear no 
mention of it during the four hunch-ed and thirty years' 
bondage in Egypt? It must have been encroached 
upon by the severity of that bondage; why, then, 
have we no complaint of such encroachment, nor, in- 
deed, any intimation whatever of a Sabbath during 
all that period ? 

This is the same objection as before, only that its 
form is changed, and its application is limited to a 
portion, instead of extending to the whole of the 
two thousand ^ve hundred years. It is made up, as 
before, of a fact asserted and an inference from it. 
The fact is, that there was no such complaint or 
intimation ; the inference is, therefore there was then 
no Sabbath. 

1. Admit the fact, the inference does not follow. 
The whole history of that bondage, and of the deliver- 
ance from it, is given in twelve short chapters. Of 
these, eight are occupied with the description of the 
plagues, and the various measures taken to effect 
the deliverance, and three with what passed between 
God and Aaron and Moses, preparatory to their un- 
4# 



42 THE SABBATH 

dertaking the work, leaving but one, or less than one^ 
for the entire history of the four hundred and tliirty 
years' bondage. And is it wonderful, that in so brief 
a history of so long a period, there should be no com- 
plaint of the violation, and no intimation of the 
observance, of an existing Sabbath ? By no means. 
Were the record as silent as alleged, it would prove 
nothing. But, 

2. It is not true that tlie record is silent. So far 
from it, brief as it is, it is manifest, on the whole face 
of it, that the encroachments of Egyptian bondage on 
the religious opportunities, privileges, and rights of the 
Israelites, and so upon their religion, were the head 
and fi-oiit of its offending ; and that the great object 
of God in effecting their deliverance, was their resto- 
ration to and confirmation in the worshij) and service 
of himself as the true God, in opposition to the idol 
gods of the Egyptians. This was tlie great end. As 
a necessary means to tliis, the great object was the 
restoration to the Hebrews of their religious and con- 
sequent civil liberty. Thev could not serve God with- 
out the liberty to do it. ll.i s they had not in Egypt. 
And as the question of American freedom was once 
wrapped up in the simple question of a threepenny 
tax on tea, so the question of Hebrew freedom was in 
this case wraj)])ed up in the question whether they 
should have their Sabbath, with its oj)portunities of 
sacrifice and worship, and its connected religious 
privileges and rights. Practically, then, as a means to 
its appro})riate end, the great question at issue be- 
tween God and Pharaoh, in respect to tlie deliverance 
of the Israelites, was THAT OF THE SABBATH, 



IN EGYPT, 43 

WITH ITS CONNECTED PRIVILEGES AND 
RIGHTS. 

No intelligent and careful reader of the Bible can 
fail to see, on a moment's reflection, that this is a true 
statement of the real questions at issue in that mar- 
vellous interposition of Divine Providence. But when 
the mandate of Jehovah first came to Pliaraoh^ (Ex. 
V. i,) " Let my people go, that they may hold a feast 
unto me in the wilderness," the prompt and contemp- 
tuous reply (v. 2) vi^as, "Who is Jehovah, that I 
should obey his voice, to let Israel go ? I kuo^v not 
Jehovah, nor will I let Israel go." Jehovah's claims, 
as Deity, "vvere proudly questioned, and his authority 
contemned. This raised a. previous question, viz. Who 
is the true Goi — the gods of Egypt, or the God of Is- 
rael ? This, of course, must be settled before it could 
be settled whether Israel should be allowed to serve 
him. To settle this, there must be a trial of strength. 
That trial must be of such a nature as to show that the 
false gods were perfecdy in the power, and subject to 
the control, of the true one. Such was the trial. Each 
and all of the divine judgments in the case were not 
only designed, but in their nature fitted, to confound 
the gods of Egypt, and establish the claims of Israel's 
God. The aptness and the force of the demonstra- 
tion, in its various steps, were truly wonderfuL Noth- 
ing could exceed the clearness and the impressive- 
ness with which each successive judgment made it 
manifest, that, in the hands of Israel's God, the gods 
of Egypt were weak and powerless, and, so far from 
affording protection to their deluded followers, could 
themselves be turned, by him, at any moment, and to 
any extent, into a torment and a curse. Introductory 



44 THE SABBATH 

to the plagues, (Ex. vii. 10 — 12,) iVaron's rod became 
a serpent ; and, when the magicians cast down their 
rods that they might become so, so far from doing it, 
Aaron's swallowed them — thereby showing the supe- 
riority of his God to theirs.^ Then came the plagues. 

* The following view of the magicians^ miracles is from Pro- 
fessor Bush's Notes on Exodus. The Hebrew will bear the 
translation which he gives it. and the nature of the case cer- 
tainly demands it. 

" Instead of reciting the various opinions of commentators 
upon this subject, on which volumes have been written, we shall 
briefly propound the interpretation which, of all others, strikes us 
as the most probable. And we regret that, from its depending 
so entirely upon the idiomatic structure of the Hebrew, the mere 
English reader will not perhaps be able fully to appreciate its 
force. We will endeavor to make it, however, if not demon- 
strable, at least intelligible. It is a canon of interpretation of 
frequent use in the exposition of the sacred writings, that verbs 
of action sometimes signify merely the loill and endeavor to do 
the action in question. Thus, Ezek. xxiv. 13, ' I have purified 
thee, and thou wast not purged j ' i. e. I have endeavored, used 
means, been at pains, to purify thee. John v. 44, ' How can 
ye believe which receive honor one of another ? ' i. e. endeavor 
to receive. Rom. ii. 4, ^ The goodness of God leadeth thee to 
repentance 5 ' i. e. endeavors or tends to lead thee. Amos ix. 3, 
' Though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea 5 ' 
i. e. though they aim to be hid. 1 Cor. x. 33, *" I 'please all men j ' 
i. e. endeavor to please. Gal. v. 4, ^ Whosoever of you are 
jiistified by the law 5' i. e. seek and endeavor to be justified. 
Ps. Ixix. 4, ' They that destroy me are mighty j ' i. e. that en- 
deavor to destroy me 5 Eng. ' that would destroy me.' Acts vii. 
26, ' And set them at one again 5 ' i.e. wished and endeavored 5 
Eng. ^ would have set them.' The passage before us we con- 
sider as exhibiting a usage entirely analogous. ' They also did 
in like manner with their enchantments 3 M. e. they endeavored to 
do in like manner 5 just as in ch. viii. 18, it is said, ^ And the 
magicians did so with their enchantments, to bring forth lice; but 



IN EGYPT. 45 

The Nile, with its imagiDary river-gods, was an object 
of peculiar sacrediiess and reverence to the Egyp- 
tians. Blood was an object of equal abhorrence. 
The first plague turned the holy river into blood — 
thus pouring contempt on it and its gods. Tiie frog 

they could not;' the words being- precisely the same in both 
instances. Adopting this construction, we suppose that the 
former clause of verse 12 should be rendered, ' For they cast 
down everj' man his rod, that they might become serpents 5' 
which the Hebrew reader will perceive to be a rendering pre- 
cisely parallel to that which occurs ch. vi, 11, • Speak unto 
Pharaoh that he let the children of Israel go 5 ' Keb. ^ and he 
shall let go.' So, also, ch. vii. 2, ^ Shall speak unto Pharaoh, 
that he send 3 ' Heb. ^ and he shall send.' The magicians cast 
down their rods that they might undergo a similar transmutation 
with that of Moses, but it is not expressly said that the}' wei-e so 
changed, and we therefore incline to place their discomfiture in 
the loss of their rods, those instruments with which they had 
vainly hoped to compete with Moses. If it be contended that 
there was some kind of change produced on the magicians' rods, 
but that it was effected by feats of juggling, or legerdemain, and 
amounted in fact merely to an optical illusion, it may be asked 
v.'hether it is probable that they were prepared with all the ne- 
cessary apparatus to perform their prodigy at one and the same 
interview with that here mentioned. Moreover, if they had 
practised a deception by imposing upon the senses of the com- 
pany, would not Moses have triumphantly detected and exposed 
it ? We doubt, therefore, whether there were any change at all 
produced upon the rods of the magicians. Should it be said 
that precisely the same expression is made use of in respect to 
Aaron's rod, and that we have as good evidence of the transfor- 
mation of their rods as of his, we answer, that it is expressly assert- 
ed (v. 10) of Aaron's- rod, that it became a serpent, while of the 
others this is not asserted, at least as we interpret the language." 

The same principles of interpretation apply to w4iat is said of 
the oilier plagues. Ex. vii. 22 says, in reference to the plague of 
blood, ^' And the magicians did so with their enchantments j " i. e. 



46 THE SABBATH 

was held sacred by them, as an emblem of preserva- 
tion in floods and inundations. The second plague 
filled the waters and the land of Egypt with them to 
such an extent, that when it ceased, so far from min- 
istering preservation, the Egyptians (Ex. viii. 14) 
"gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank" 
with their rotting and polluted carcasses. To enter 
the temple of any of their deities with lice, or any 
vermin of the kind, upon their garments, was to the 
Egyptians one of the greatest of profanations; so 
much so, that to prevent it, they generally wore two 
linen garments, one over tl^e other, and laid aside 
the outer whenever they approached their gods. By 
the third plague, (Ex. viii. 17,) " all the dust of the land 
became lice throughout all the land of Egypt," cover- 
ing man and beast, so that not one of them could go 
into the presence of his idol god without offering in- 
sult to him. Among the living objects of their wor- 
ship, the bull, the heifer, the ram, the he-goat, were most 
sacred. The fifth plague laid these dead at the feet 

attempted to do so. It is not said that they succeeded. So, 
Ex. viii. 7 should read, ^^ And the magicians did so, [attempted to 
do so,) that they might bring up frogs.'' And (Ex. viii. 18) we 
have it in terms, that " the magicians did so with their enchant- 
ments, to bring forth J ice, but they could not." On this interpre- 
tation the magicians made four attempts in behalf of Egypt's 
gods to cope with Israel's God, and failed in all. As was natural, 
they then acknowledged, ^^ This is the finger of God." Had they, 
however, succeeded in the other cases, so far from acknowledging 
the finger of God in consequence of their failure in the one last case, 
they would but have attributed it to some other cause, and gone 
on still testing the strength of Egypt's gods with the God of Israel. 
Success in three cases, and failure in one, surely would not have 
wrung out the condemnation of themselves and their gods in the 
unwelcome acknowledgment that Israel's was the true God. 



IN EGYPT, 47 

of their worshippers. Of inanimate things, the heav- 
enly host — the sun. moon, and stars — were favorite 
objects of adoration. The ninth plague put out their 
light over all the Egyptians, and shovved that neither 
sun, nor moon, nor stars, could prevent the super- 
natural darkness of the superior power of Israel's 
God. So it was with all the plagues. They were 
not, nor were they designed to be, marvellous exhibi- 
tions merely of divine power, made only for effect, 
and irrespective of the great question at issue, but 
made with special reference to that question. Each 
was not only an exhibition of such power, but, in its 
nature and design, a test of strength between Israel's 
God and the gods of Egypt. " Yea, (Ex. xii. 12,) 
against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judg- 
ment ; /am the Lord," was the purpose and the plan 
of that whole interposition. By such a judgment it 
was that the great question, " Who is tJue true God'^ " 
was settled, and the claim of Israel's God, "/" (not 
the gods of Egypt) ^- am the Lord^^'' fully established. 
This done, the Hebrews were won back to the God 
of their fathers ; the question of their deliverance was 
settled ; and the way was opened for the restoration 
to them of their religious and consequent civil liberty ; i. e. 
of those religious opportunities, privileges, and rights, 
of which their bondage had deprived them, and 
which, 05 a means to an end. involved the question of 
their liberty, and were essential to their continued fidel- 
ity to their great Deliverer ; and, as such, were in fact 
the question at issue between him and Pharaoh. The 
p'evious question was. Who is the true God ? That 
settled, the main question was. Shall Israel be allowed 
to serve him ? i. e. Shall Israel have their religious, and. 



48 THE SABBATH 

SO far, their civil freedom ? To test this, the practical 
question was, Shall Israel have their Sabbath, with its 
opportunities of worship and sacrifice, and its connect- 
ed privileges and rights ? It was, throughout, a grand 
controversy between God and Pharaoh for the religious 
freedom of his people, as that freedom was involved 
in, and made to turn upon, their liberty to observe the 
Sabbath, with its connected opportunities of sacrifice 
and worship. That it was so is manifest, 

(1.) From the fact, that the one, uniform, and great 
demand of Moses and Aaron, in the name of God, 
and on behalf of the people, was, that they might go 
where they could serve God, by holding a religious 
festival to him — a plain declaration, that where they 
were, they had neither the time nor the liberty to do 
it, but that their privileges and rights in these re- 
spects were taken away. In their first interview 
with Pharaoh, (Ex. v. 1, 3,) the demand, in its original 
and ofiicial form, was, " Thus saith Jehovah, the God 
of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a 
feast (religious festival) unto me in the wilderness." — 
"Let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the 
desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God." And 
subsequently (compare Ex. vii. 16 ; viii. I, 20, 25, 27, 
28; ix. 1, 13; x. 3, 8,9, 24,25,26; xii. 31, 32) the 
one unceasing demand was, " Let my people go, that 
they may serve me." — " With our flocks and our 
herds will we go ; for we must hold a feast (religious 
festival) unto the Lord." — "Thou must give us also 
sacrifices and burnt-offerings, that we may sacrifice 
unto the Lord our God." But why go out of Egypt 
for this, except on the ground that they could not do 
it in Egypt ? 



IN EGYPT. 49 

(2.) The same is manifest from Pharaoh's proposi- 
tion for a compromise. When visited with the 
plague of flies, (Ex. viii. 25.) lie " called for Moses 
and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God 
in the landy And this he proffered as a substitute for 
going into the wilderness to sacrifice. But how could 
it be a substitute, except on the ground that they had 
not been allowed to sacrifice '-in the land" before? 

(3.) Moses' answer confirms the fact, and lets us 
into the reason of it. "It is not meet," said he, (Ex. 
viii. 26, 27,) " so to do ; for we shall sacrifice the 
abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God ; 
lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyp- 
tians before their eyes, and will they not stone us ? " * 
This is as if he had said, " We cannot do so ; ibr if 
v^e do we must sacrifice the bullock, the ram, &c., — 
the very deities of the Egyptians, — to our God. Our 
favorite sacrifices w^ill be their favorite gods. Vv^hat 
is worship to us will be sacrilege to them. And will 
they look quietly on, and see us, their slaves, offer 
their favorite national gods in sacrifice to our God ? 
It cannot be. All Egypt will be in arms at such an 
outrage. 'We will therefore go three days' journey 
into the Vv^ilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our 
God.' " Such was the reply. Can it be doubted that 
previous to this, the Israelites had neither the times, 
nor the privileges, nor the rights, of such worship, 
" in the land " ? 

(4.) As a general thing, the Israelites, while in 
Egypt, had fallen in with the idolatry of their op- 

* The Chaldee version has it, '' For the beasts which the 
Egyptians worship, shall we offer in sacrifice 3 lo, shall we offer 
for sacrifice the beasts which the Egyptians worship ? '' 



50 THE SABBATH 

pressors — thereby showing that they had lost their 
disposition, as well as their opportunities and rights, 
to worship Jehovah. This fact is plainly asserted in 
the inspired record. When Joshua had fairly plant- 
ed them in the promised land, in his exhortation to 
them just before his death, he said, (Jos. xxiv. 14,) 
"Put away the gods which your fathers served on 
the other side of the flood, even in Egypt, and serve 
ye the Lord." In Ezekiel, also, (xx. 6 — 8,) God says, 
that when he brought them out of Egypt, he said to 
them, "Cast ye away every man the abominations of 
his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of 
Egypt ; I am the Lord your God. But they rebelled 
against me, and would not hearken unto me ; they 
did not every man cast away the abominations of 
their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of 
Egypt." Indeed, it is only on the supposition that, 
as a general thing, idolatry had been the hahit of 
Israel, as well as Egypt, that you can explain the 
readiness with which they fell away to the worship 
of the molten calf at Sinai. After witnessing such 
marvellous displays of divine power, such convincing 
evidences of the superiority of Jehovah to the gods 
of Egypt, how could any, but a people habituated to 
worship those gods, and, from the force of that very 
habit, still half in doubt whether they were not the 
true ones, within three short months, actually deny 
their great Deliverer, and bow down in senseless 
homage to one of the idol gods of their oppressors ? 
On any other supposition, the scene at Sinai were 
little less than a miracle. 

But whence came it, that idolatry was the Jmbit of 
the Hebrews while in Egypt .^ Not from the force 



IN EGYPT. 51 

of example merely ; for the Hebrew, being a herds- 
man, was such " an abommation to the Egyptians," 
(Gen. xlvi. 34,) that (Gen. xhii. 32) "the Egyptian 
might not eat bread with the Hebrews." This fact, 
especially when accompanied with a grinding op- 
pression, woiild beget a similar prejudice in the He- 
brew in return, and so destroy the force of example, 
in leading him off to the worship of his oppressor's 
gods. Causes more powerful than example, then, 
and better adapted to the end, must have existed, 
and conspired to work out such a result. As they 
could not worship their God without offering insult 
and committing sacrilege to the gods of Egypt, sup- 
pose them stripped, by the strong arm of oppression, 
of all their religious opportunities, privileges, and 
rights, and, in all public, social worship, compelled 
to worship Egypt's gods or none ; in such a state of 
things you have causes adequate to the result. With 
no Sabbath, with its stated opportmiities for public 
and social religious instruction and worship ; with 
no occasional opportunities of the kind ; and with no 
privileges and rights peculiar to the worship of their 
God, — and this continued from generation to genera- 
tion through a period of two hundred years or more, — 
no wonder that they forsook, if they did not forget, 
the God of their fathers, and fell in with the idolatry 
of their oppressors. On this supposition, their idol- 
atiy is explained. On no other can it be. 

(5.) Tha.t this is the true solution, is further manifest 
from the manner in which Pharaoh first received the 
^jommand to let the people go. The fii'st part of that 
mandate (Ex. v. 1 — 8) was, " Thus saith Jehovah, the 
God of Israel, Let my people go." To this Pharaoh 



52 THE SABBATH 

replied, "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his 
voice to let Israel go?" The second part of the 
mandate was, " that they may hold a feast (a festival 
of sacrifice and worship) to me in the wilderness." 
To this he answered, "Wherefore do ye, Moses and 
Aaron, let the people from their works ? Behold, the 
people are many, yet ye make them " (all) " rest from 
their burdens!" — WleYsllY^ [Jiishhattem,) "ye cause 
them to sabbatize, or keep Sabbath from their bur- 
dens! " — Strange infatuation, that you should expect 
me to allow this ! Indeed, worshippers as they gen- 
erally are of Egypt's gods, what real care have they 
for the God of which you speak, or the season of 
rehgious rest and sacrifice for which you clamor? 
Nay, nay, it is a mere pretence — a cover to their in- 
dolence. "They be idle" — "They be idle; there- 
fore they cry, saying. Let us go and sacrifice to our 
God." Such was plainly the drift and meaning of 
the reply. And being so, what is it but a clear inti- 
mation, tha.t the demand of Moses and Aaron was a 
demand for the restoration of the Sabbath, with its 
connected opportunities and privileges of religious 
instruction, sacrifice, and worship ? 

Moreover, (6.) the term "feast" in the demand is 
indicative of as much as this. That the Sabbath was 
called a " feast " is proved by Lev. xxiii. 2, 3, where it is 
named as one of " the feasts of the Lord." That the 
feast which Moses demanded was some religious fes- 
tival, or season for sacrifice and worship, is proved 
by the terms of the demand as quoted above, p. 48. 
That it was tJiat festival or season, which was af-. 
terwards the distinguishing badge of the people as 
the worshippers of Jehovah, and which was most 



IN EGYPT. 53 

sacredly and scrupulously observed by tbem5 is cer- 
tainly most probable. That festival, or season, was 
the Sabbath. After their departure from Egypt, the 
first " feast," or season of worship, of which we have 
any account, was that of the Sabbath. In the sub- 
sequent enumeration of "the feasts of the Lord," 
(Lev. xxiii.) the Sabbath is named first — " These are 
my feasts. Six days shall work be done ; but the 
seventh day is the Sabbath of rest," &c. Then the 
several yearly feasts are named. And finally, the 
Sabbath, above all, was made their distinguishing 
" sign," or badge, as the worshippers of Jehovali, and 
not of idols. Can it be doubted, then, that this was 
the feast so sternly demanded by Moses, and so res- 
olutely refused by Pharaoh ? and, therefore, that the 
grand object of God's interposition in the case, was, 
to restore the Sabbath to his people, and with tliat 
their religious fi*eedom ? and this done to leave 
them no excuse for not serving him with fidelity? 
Indeed, (7.) all this is distinctly declared by Moses 
in the subsequent history. In Deut. v. 32 — 15, we find 
the following: — 

" Keep the Sabbath-day to sanctify it, as Jehovah thy 
God hath commanded thee. Six days thou siialt labor, 
and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath 
of Jehovah thy God : in it thou shalt not do an}- work, 
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, 
nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any 
of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates ; 
that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as 
well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant 
in the land of Egypt, and that Jehovah thy God brought 
thee out thence, through a mighty hand and by a stretched- 
5* 



54 



THE SABBATH 



out arm : therefore Jehovah thy God commanded thee to 
keep the Sabbath-day." 

What is the true import of this passage ? It occurs 
in the midst of a recapitulation of the ten command- 
ments. It contains, first, an injunction to keep the 
Sabbath ; then a declaration that the seventh day of 
the week is the day for keeping it ; then an injunc- 
tion to the Hebrev/ to abstain from all ordinary labor 
on that day, and to let his children, and servants, and 
beasts, do the same ; then the reason of this provision 
for the servants — " that they may rest as well as thou ; " 
and then a reference to his bondage in Egypt, and 
deliverance from it. JVhy this reference ? Not, surely, 
to give the reason for the original institution of the 
Sabbath; for that is given (Ex. xx. 11) thus — "For 
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth j the sea, 
and all that iu them is, and rested the seventh day; 
wherefore " [because he did this, not because he brought 
the Hebrews out of Egypt) "the Lord blessed the 
Sabbath-day,-' and hallowed it." To make the pas- 
sage before us give another and a different reason, is 
to involve the Bible in contradiction. The obvious 
design of the reference, then, was to give force to the 
reason of the provision for the servants. How it 
would give force to that reason, may be seen in the 
following paraphrase : — 

" Keep the Sabbath, &c., and let your servants 
keep it, that they may rest as well as thou ; and, that 

* The Septuagint. and several other versions, have this : — •' The 
Lord b'essed the seventh day/' &c. This is plainly the true 
readings ; for it agrees with the facts in the case, and also with 
the orig^inal record in Gen. ii. 3. 



IN EGYPT. OO 

thou mayest let them rest as well as thon, remember 
that thou wast a servant once in the land of Egypt, 
where thou wouldst have been glad of such a day of 
rest, butcouldstnot have it ; and remember, also, that 
the Lord thy God brouglit thee out thence, &c., be- 
cause fhat'^ the Lord thy God had commanded thee to 
keep the Sabbath, and thou couldst not do it there." 
This view is demanded by the context, and makes 
the reference to the bondage in Egypt apt and for- 
cible. Well might the Hebrew let his servants rest 
on the Sabbath, when he remembered how he was 
deprived of it in Egypt, and what God had wrought 
to give it back to him, and with it all his religious 
privileges and rights. Can it be doubted, then, that 
this is the true import and design of the reference ? 
And being so, what is the whole passage but a dis- 
tinct declaration, that, as involving the question of 
their religious freedom, the Sabbath, with its oppoi'- 
tunities of worship and its connected religious priv- 
ileges and rights, was the great question at issue 
between God and Pharaoh in the deliverance of the 

* The term al-ken, rendered here " therefore/' is often used 
in the Bible in the sense of '' because that/'" or '■ on account of/'* 
as may be seen by consulting an}" Hebrc^v Lexicon : Or, without 
any change in the translation^ the paraphrase may run thus: — 
" Remember that thou wast a servant once in the land of Egypt^ 
where thou wouldst have been glad of such a day of rest, but 
couldst not have it 3 and that then the Lord thy God brought thee 
out thence, that thou mightest have it. Therefore, because he 
has done all this to give it back to 3-ou, he has commanded you 
anew to keep it.'' In either view, the passage teaches that the 
Sabbath, as a preexisting institution, was the reason for the de- 
liverance, and not that the deliverance was a reason for the 
institution of the Sabbath. 



56 THE SABBATH IN EGYPT. 

Hebrews from their house of bondage? Put, then, 
these items together — the demand to go out where 
they could keep a festival of sacrifice and worship to 
the Lord ; the permission, as a compromise, to sacri- 
fice in the land ; the fact that the}^ could not do this 
without committing, as the Egyptians would regard 
it, sacrilege ; that, as a general thing, the Hebrews 
had fallen in with the idolatry of their oppressors, — 
which, considering their strong mutual repellances, 
could not have been, had they |iot been deprived, 
by the strong arm of power, of their religious oppor- 
tunities and rights; that the vSabbath was preem- 
inently the " fefist" of the Jews ; that Pharaoh actually 
complains that Moses and Aaron cause the people to 
keep Sabbath from their burdens ; and, finally, that 
Moses informs us in tenns that God brought them 
up out of Egypt, because he had commanded them 
to keep Sabbath, implying, beyond question, that they 
could not keep it there ; — put all these items together, 
and then add the fact that the first religious obser- 
vance, of which we have any account after their 
deliverance, is that of the Sabbath, and can it be 
believed that we have no mention of a Sabbath, and 
no complaint of encroachments upon it, during the 
period of Egyptian bondage? What, indeed, in the 
light of these facts, is that whole history but one un- 
broken complaint ? And v/hat was the " feast," or 
season of sacrifice and worship, so loudly demanded, 
but that very season whose religious observance is so 
early mentioned in the subsequent history ? And 
that season w^as the Sabbath. The evidence on this 
point will accumulate as we proceed. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SABBATH IN THE WILDERNESS. 

The Sabbath, it is said, was originally given in the 
second month after the deliverance from Egypt, in 
the wilderness of Sin, and as a memorial of that de- 
liverance. 

1. The only proof attempted of its being such a 
memorial, is drawn from the passage (Deut. v. 15) 
we have just examined. The form of phrase ologyj 
" Therefore the Lord Ihy God commanded thee to 
keep the Sabbath-day," it is said, proves that it was 
instituted, and was to be kept, as a memorial of the 
deliverance referred to. But, as we have seen, the 
Hebrew admits of, and the connection of the passage 
requires, the rendering, ^''because that the Lord thy 
God had commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day." 
This rendering makes the Sabbath, as previously 
existing, a reason for the deliverance, and not the 
deliverance a reason for its institution. That this is 
the true sense of the passage, and that the Sabbath 
was not instituted as a memorial of the event in 
question, is further manifest, 

(L) From the fact, that, as such a memorial, it has 
no significancy. Nothing is more obvious than that 
in ail the memorials, symbols, types, &c., of the old 
economy, care was taken to have the sign a fit em- 



58 THE SABBATH 

blem of the thing signified. There was always a fit- 
ness in the nature of the one to that of the other. 
Tliiis, in the Sabbath as a memorial of creation, there 
is a fitness in the memorial to the thing memorial- 
ized. But as a memorial of deliverance from Egypt, 
what is there in the sign to represent the thing sig- 
nified ? They were not delivered on the seventh 
day of the week; at least there is no evidence of 
it. Nor were they brought out by virtue of seven 
plagues; for there were ten of them. Nor was 
there any thing in the event itself to make the reli- 
gious observance of each seventh day an appropriate 
and fit memorial of it. As such memorial, why, then, 
should it recur every seventh day? Why not have 
it every tenth, according to the number of plagues? 
Or every seventieth ? Or every month ? Or, as it 
was the day of their national freedom, why not have 
it, like our own anniversary of American independ- 
ence, once a year, and on the day and month of their 
deliverance ? That would have made it as a memo- 
rial, significant of the event. But as it is, it has no 
significancy of it whatever. 

(2.) To suppose it such a memorial involves the 
Bible in iirecondlahle contradiction. The reason given 
for its institution, in Ex. xx. 11, is, " For in six days 
the Lord made heaven and earth, &c., and rested the 
seventh day." That given in Ex. xxxi. 17, is the same. 
And both are the same with that given in the first 
mention of it, in Gen. ii. 3. Every w^here the reason 
is the same. It is only in the passage under con- 
sideration, that a difiTerent reason even seerns to be 
given. What, then, is the inference ? That the Bible 
contradicts itself — assigning two different reasons for 



IN THE WILDERNESS. 59 

the same thing, the one utterly unlike, and twenty-five 
hundred years apart from, the other ? Or, that the 
passage in question is to be understood in some other 
sense ; and in that especially, which, while it makes 
the Bible consistent, is allowed by the original, and 
adds force and beauty to the connection ? But, 

(3.) The passover, and the sandification, or setiing 
apart of the Jirst-horn of man and beast to the service 
of the altar and the temple, were specially instituted 
as memorials of the deliverance in question. While 
yet in Egypt, (Ex. xii. 1 — 27,) God, by Moses and 
Aaron, gave to the Israelites specific direction in re- 
gard to the intent of the passover, the manner of 
keeping it, and its perpetual observance in the land to 
which he was about to bring them. Of its observance 
there he says, (v. 14,) "This day shall be unto you 
for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the 
Lord throughout your generations ; ye shall keep it a 
feast by an ordinance forever. And (vs. 26, 27) when 
your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by 
this service ? ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the 
Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the 
childi'en of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyp- 
tians, and delivered our houses." After their de- 
parture, the command was, (Ex. xiii. 3, 8 — 10,) "Re- 
member this day in which ye came out of Egypt, out 
of the house of bondage. And (after repeating the 
directions about keeping it) thou shalt show thy son 
in that day, saying, This is done because of that which 
the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of 
Egypt. And it shall be for a sig7i unto thee upon 
thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes ; 
that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth ; for with a 



60 THE SABBATH 

Strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt. 
Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season 
from year to yearP This was their national anniver- 
sary, commemorative, like the anniversaiy of Ameri- 
can independence, of their national deliverance. 

In the same connection, also, God said, (Ex. xiii. 2, 12,) 
"Sanctify unto me all the first-born, whatsoever open- 
eth the womb among the children of Israel, both of 
man and of beast : it is mine;" or, (v. 12,) "Set them 
apart to the Lord, &c. ; the males shall be the Lord's " 
— the beasts (v. 13) to be offered in sacrifice, and the 
men to be redeemed. " And (vs. 14 — 16) it shall be, 
when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, 
What is this ? that thou shalt say unto him. By strength 
of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from 
the house of bondage ; for it came to pass, when 
Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that tPie Lord slew 
all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first- 
born of man, and the first-born of beast : therefore I 
sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth tlie matrix, being 
males, (of beasts;) but all the first-born of my children 
I redeem. And it shall be for a token upon thine 
hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes, that by 
strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of 
Egypt." 

Here, then, we have two distinct and apprdjbriate in- 
stitutions — the one to be observed from year to year 
as a great national religious anniversary, the other 
entering as a permanent organic arrangement into 
their religious and civil polity, and both standing me- 
morials of their deliverance from Egypt. In these 
memorials, moreover, there was a fitness in the sign to 
the thing signified. Why, then, have a thii'd memorial 



IN THE WILDERNESS. 61 

of the same event, and especially one destitute of all 
fitness as a representative of the thing memorialized? 
Or, if a third were to be had, why not institute it like 
the others, at the time ? Why wait for a two 
months' journey into the wilderness ? Manifestly, the 
Sabbath was not instituted as a memorial of deliver- 
ance from Egypt. 

2. Nor was the Sabbath originally instituted in the 
second month after the deliverance, and while the 
Hebrews were in the wilderness of Sin. That it was, 
is argued from the general tenor of the mention 
made of it (Ex. xvi. 23 — 30) at the giving of manna; 
and especially from the fact, that it is said to have 
been " given," or " mode known,'^^ then. " See, (Ex. 
xrvi. 29,) for that the Lord hath given you the Sab- 
bath ; " and, (Ezek. xx. 11, 12,) " I gave them my stat- 
utes, and showed them my judgments. Moreover, 
also, I gave them my Sabbaths ; " and, (Neh. ix. 13, 
14,) " Thou gavest them commandments, and madest 
known unto them thy holy Sabbath." And how^ it is 
asked, could the Sabbath have existed before, if it 
were '^given,''^ or ''made known^''^ then? 

(1.) This argument assumes that laws and institu- 
tions are never said to be "given," or ''made known,^^ 
when they are renewed, but only when they are fu*st 
promulgated or established. But this is not true. For, 
among the statutes, &c., which God, in Ezekiel, says 
he gave in the wilderness, circumcision was obviously 
one. Yet that existed and vv^as observed before. In- 
deed, Christ (John vii. 22) says in terms that it was 
given then, and yet did exist before — " Moses gave 
unto you circumcision, not that it is of Moses, (ori- 
ginally.) but of the fathers." This settles the point, 



63 THE SABBATH 

that laws and institutions are sometimes said to be 
given, when they are merely reestablished, or incor- 
porated into some new economy. The same is true 
of the phrase "madest known," in Nehemiah. The 
term in the original is the same with that translated 
"showed" in Ezekiel. But as we have just seen, 
circumcision was one of the things "showed," or 
"made known," by Moses at that time. Yet the law 
of circumcision was not then first promulgated. So 
with the law of murder. That was as old as the 
flood. " Whoso (Gen. ix. 6) sheddeth man's blood, 
by man shall his blood be shed." And the institu- 
tion of marriage, too, was as old as creation. Yet 
both these were among the statutes and the judg- 
ments of the Mosaic economy. This is conclusive, 
that laws and institutions are said to be "given," or 
" made known," when they are only reestablished, or 
incorporated into some new economy, as well as 
when originally promulgated. And this, even if we 
could not explain the reason or propriety of the 
usage, shows conclusively that the argument from 
it is without the least force. But we can explain it. 
Nothing is easier or more obvious. There are two 
explanations, either of which is satisfactory. The 
Mosaic economy was made up of two kinds of in- 
stitutions and laws. The one were those which had 
existed before ; the other, those which were given by 
Moses for the first time. Yet, taken together as a 
whole, they made a code, or an economy, which, as a 
whole, was new. It was a new code — it was a new 
economy, although made up in part of elements that 
had existed before. Speaking of them, then, as a 
whole, or as a part even of this whole, it was per- 



IN THE WILDERNESS. 63 

fectly proper and natural to speak of them as ^'given,''^ 
or ''made known^'' at the time when the new code or 
economy, as such, was pro muJ gated or estabhshed. 

But we have a better sohition. The Sabbath, with 
its connected observances, was subsequently, we find, 
the distinguishing badge, or " sign," by which the wor- 
shippers of Jehovah were to be known from the 
worshippers of idols. If it existed, beibre the bon- 
dage in Eg}^t, it must have been an equally distinctive 
badge ; and therefore the institution which pagan 
oppressors would be most likely to invade, or take 
from their vassals. Suppose, then, that the Hebrews 
were robbed of their Sabbath in Egypt, and with it 
of their other religious privileges and rights ; that, as 
a result, they liad generally fallen in with the current 
idolatry ; that, by such degeneracy, continued through 
a period of one or two hundred years, they had for- 
gotten and lost the regular day for the Sabbath, or, if 
not this, had forgotten the proper modes of sacrifice 
and worship upon it — and Moses (Ex. x. 26) says, 
"For we know not w^ith what w^e must serve the 
Lord until we come thither" (into the wilderness) — 
suppose all this; and now God, by the hand of Moses, 
brings them oat, and, with such new institutions and 
laws as their circumstances demand, gives them back 
the old ones too, and makes known to them the things 
they had forgotten ; and then how natural and impres- 
sive the language, "I gave them my Sabbaths" — 
"Thou gavest them commandments, and madest 
known unto them thy holy Sabbath"! Could any 
thing be more so P But, 

(2.) If the Sabbath were originally given at the giv- 
ing of manna, (Ex. xvi. 23—29,) how marvellous the 



64 THE SABBATH 

difference in the first account of its original institu- 
tion and that of the passover and the sanctification 
of the first-born ! In the first mention of the original 
institution of the two latter, (Ex. xii. 1 — ^27, and xiii. 
1 — 16,) we have a minute and specific detail of the 
time, occasion, and reason or design of their institu- 
tion. We should expect a similar record of the origi- 
nal institution of the Sabbath. On the supposition 
of its institution at creation, we have such record in 
Gen. ii. 2, 3. On the supposition of its institution in 
the wilderness, we ought to have a similar record. 
But we have not. Though, on this supposition, in- 
stituted nearly at the same time, and for precisely the 
same reasons, wdth the passover and the sanctification 
of the first-born, the first record of it says not one 
word of the time, or the occasion, or the reasons of 
it, nor indeed of the proper modes of its observance. 
The record is full and minute, on these points, in re- 
gard to the other institutions. Why is it not equally 
so in reference to this ? Nay, in reference to them, 
the entire structure of the language is that of appoint- 
ment and command. It is throughout "thou shalt," 
" ye shall," " thej^ shall," do this or that, and it " shall be 
a memorial " of this or that. But there is not a word 
of this in the supposed first record (Ex. xvi. 23 — 29) 
of the Sabbath. The structure here is, " To-morrow 
15 " — not shall he — " the rest of the holy Sabbath unto 
the Lord." Why the difference, except on the sup- 
position, that the mention of the Sabbath in this case, 
so far from being that of its original institution, was a 
mere incidental mention of it, as of an institution 
already existing and observed, and now particularly 
spoken of in consequence of the manna's not falling 



IN THE WILDERNESS. 65 

upon that day, and as the reason of its not falling 
then? — as if the historian would say, (Ex. xvi. 26,) 
" On six days of the week the manna shall fall, and ye 
shall gather it ; but on the seventh day of the week, 
which, as an existing and previous fact, is the Sab- 
bath, there shall be none.'' Such a view accounts 
for the difference in these records of the Sabbath, the 
passover, and the sanctification of the first-born. Iii 
the light of it, we can readily see why it is, that in 
the one case, there is great minuteness of specifica- 
tion and detail, and the language of appointment and 
command, while in the other there is nothing of the 
kind. The one is the record of the original estab- 
lishment of new institutions : the other, an incidental 
mention of an old one. 

(3.) The circumstances of the case, and the general 
connection and obvious import of the passage in ques- 
tion, are decisive of the correctness of this view. 
This will be obvious from a flnniliar paraphrase or 
running comment. The people (v. 2) murmur for 
bread. To supply them, God says, (v. 4,) "Behold, I 
will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people 
shall go out and gather a certain rate every day " of 
the week, the Sabbath excepted, " that I may prove 
them, whether they will v/alk in my law or no. For 
(v. 5) it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day " of 
the week "they shall prepare that which they bring 
in ; and it shall be twice as much as they gather 
daily," or "on other days," so that they shall have 
nothing to prevent their resting and worshipping me 
on the Sabbath, and I may thus be able to prove 
them, to see whether they will walk in my law or no. 
The manna fell, and the people gathered it as di- 
6* 



66 THE SABBATH 

rected. Some, in their anxiety for the future, kept 
some of it (v. 20) "until the" next "morning, and it 
bred worms and stank ; and Moses was wroth " at 
their want of confidence in God. Nevertheless, the 
manna continued to fall, "and (v. 21) tliey gathered 
it every morning" of the week, "every man accord- 
ing to his eating ; and when the sun waxed hot it 
melted," so that there was none to be gathered after 
that, until the next morning. " And (v. 22) it came to 
pass, that on the sixth day" of the week, as God 
had said, " they gathered twice as much bread, two 
omers for one man ; and," as God, by Moses, had 
told them (v. 5) " to prepare " this, so that it would 
keep for the next day, "all the rulers of the congre- 
gation came and told Moses,'' that he might tell them, 
and they the people, how to prepare it. And there 
was the more need of this, inasmuch as some had 
tried to keep it over to the next morning during the 
previous week, and, instead of kee})ing, it had only 
" bred worms and stank." And Moses (v. 23) " said 
mito them, This is what the Lord hath said," viz. 
that (v. 5) on the sixth day of the week they shall pre- 
pare what they bring in ; and it shall be twice as 
much as they gather on other days. " To-morrow," 
as you are aware, " is the rest of the holy Sabbath 
unto the Lord." That you may be able to keep 
it, you may prepare your food by baking or seething, 
just as you choose. Prepai-ed either way, it will 
keep. Therefore, "bake that which ye will bake, 
and seethe that ye will seethe," and eat what you 
wish of it to-day, " and that which remaineth over lay 
up for you, to be kept until the morning." And they 
did so, (v, 24j) " and it did not stink, neither was there 



IN THE WILDERNESS. 67 

any worm therein," as there was before. "And," 
(v. 25,) when the Sabbath had come, " Moses said. Eat 
that to-day, for to-day is" — not shall be — '^a Sab- 
bath " or holy rest '• unto the Lord : to-day ye shall not 
find it in the field. vSix days " of the week (v. 26) "j'e 
shall gather it, but on the seventh day" of the week, 
"the Sabbath, in it," because it is the Sabbath, and 
that you may have nothing to hinder you from keep- 
ing it, "there shall be none. And," (v. 27,) yet after 
all this, " there went out some of the people on the 
seventh day for to gather, but they found none. 
And the Lord " (v. 28) was grieved at their disobe- 
dience, and " said unto Piloses, How long refuse ye 
to keep my commandments and my laws ? " Just 
think what I have done that you might have the Sab- 
bath back again, and have nothing to prevent your 
keeping it. When you could not keep it in Egypt 
because of your oppressors, I brought you out thence ; 
and now, that j^ou may have nothing to prevent your 
keeping it here, I give you, on the sixth day of the 
week, the food of two days. " See, (v. 29,) for that the 
Lord hath given you " back " the Sabbath, therefore," 
because he has done it, and that you may keep it, " he 
giveth you on the sixth day " of the week " the bread 
of two daj'S." V/hy, then, should ye not keep it? Why 
not spend it in the worship and sei-vice of the Lord 
your God ? " Abide ye every man in his place : let 
no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So 
(v. 30) the people rested on the seventh day." Can 
it be doubted that this is an incidental mention of an 
institution already existing, and not the record of its 
original establishment? Can it be doubted, either, 
that the restoration of this to an oppressed people, 



OO THE SABBATH 

with its accompanying privileges and rights, as an 
ancient institution of their ancient faith, was one 
grand object of their dehverance? 

Finally, if the Sabbath were originally instituted in 
the wilderness, and as a memorial of deliverance from 
Egypt, why should it he incorporated into the decalogue^ 
rather than the law of the passover, or that of the 
sanctification of the first-born? The decalogue, with 
the exception of the law of the Sabbath, is confess- 
edly made up of those laws whose obligation is 
founded in the very nature of things, is unchanging 
and perpetual in its character, and common to man 
in every age and ever}^ nation. It is, in one word, 
a summary of the COMMON LAW OF THE WORLD 
— of that common law, which exists prior to, is inde- 
pendent of, and yet enters naturally and necessarily 
as FUNDAMENTAL LAW, into every well-ordered 
ecclesiastical and civil polity. This, confessedly, is true 
of the decalogue, with the single exception of the law 
of the Sabbath. Here, then, according to the supposi- 
tion before us, are three institutions, established about 
the same time, commemoii.riveof the same event, and 
equally limited in their existence, obligation, and de- 
sign, to the Jewish economy. Why should the law of 
one of them go in as part and parcel of the common 
law of mankind, rather than that of either of the others ? 
Or, if a selection must be made, Vv^hy should it fall upon 
the Sabbath ? The passover, as a sign or memorial, 
was most impressively significant of the thing signified. 
The Sabbath, as we have seen, has no such signifi- 
cancy whatever. Why, then, should it take prece- 
dence of the passover? The sanctification of the first- 
born was also equally significantj and in addition to 



IN THE WILDERNESS. 0» 

this, entered, if not as fundamental, yet as permanent, 
organic law, into the entire Jewish polity. As such 
law it was to live as long as the polity itself. Why, 
then, should the Sabbath take precedence of it ? There 
is but one answer. The Sabbath was not originally 
instituted in the wilderness, nor as a memorial of de- 
liverance from Egypt, nor as limited to the Jewish 
economy. Like the marriage institution, it had its 
being at creation. It was made for man — the race 
It grew naturally and necessarily out of his nature, 
necessities, and relations. It existed prior to and in- 
dependent of the Jewish and every other individual and 
limited economy. As an institution, it began, like that 
of marriage, with the race ; was made for the race, 
and was designed to live while the race should, and 
to go down through economy after economy, until the 
last economy should crumble to pieces, and time give 
place to eternity. Of course the law of its observance^ 
"Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy," was to 
it just what the law of the marriage institution, 
^•Thou shalt not commit adultery," was to it. As the 
latter, whether ^'VTltten by the finger of God on tables 
of stone, or in the deep foundations of the nature, 
necessities, and relations of man, was a pcni of uni- 
versal common law, and therefore included in God's 
summary of that law, so it was with the former. That 
was as truly a part of the common law of the race as 
was the law of marriage, and, being so in fact, was of 
course incorporated inform into God's summary of it. 
No other supposition can explain the precedence of 
the law of the Sabbath, in respect to its insertion in 
the decalogue, over that of the passover, or the sanc- 
tification of the first-born. The one was a part of 



70 THE SABBATH 

universal common law — going, therefore, as funda- 
mental law, into all well-ordered economies. The 
others were but a part of the statute law of that par- 
ticular economy. The one, therefore, because it was 
a part of it, went into God's summary of the common 
law of man. The others, because they were not a 
part of it, did not go into it. What other solution 
can be given of the fact in question ? And this being 
given, how clear is it that the law of the Sabbath, like 
the laws of marriage, property, and life, is universally 
and perpetually binding ! 

Objection. But it is said, that " where Moses rehears- 
es the commandments, (the fourth among the rest,) he 
says, (Deut. v. 3,) ^The Lord made not this covenant 
with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of 
us here alive this day.' ^' * And the inference is, that 
the Sabbath was not instituted at the creation, nor for 
all men, but in the wilderness, and for the Jew only, 
and of course is not obligatory on the Christian. 

Answer. The covenant here spoken of included the 
whole decalogue. This is admitted. Whatever, then, 
the declaration, that it was not made with the fathers, 
proves in respect to one part of it, as, for instance, the 
law of the Sabbath, it equally proves in respect to 
every part. If it prove that the patriarchs had no 
Sabbath, and that the law of its observance was not 
binding on them, it proves equally that they had no 
God, and that the law of his worship was not binding ; 
that they had no marriage institution, v/ith its filial 
and conjugal relations, and that the laws of their 
observance, "Honor thy father and thy mother/' 

* Grew, on the Sabbath^ p. 5. 



IN THE WILDERNESS. 71 

"Thou shaltnot commit adultery," were not binding; 
and so of tlie whole decalogue, the law of property, 
"Thou shalt not steal," and that of life, " Thou shalt 
not kill," not excepted. In the same manner, if the 
declaration in question prove that there is no Sabbath 
mider the Christian dispensation, and that the law of 
its observance is not binding on those that live under 
it, with equal certainty does it prove that Christianity 
is a universal exemption from every obligation of the 
decalogue, and an entire extinction of every institution 
and every right guarded by it — the institution of 
marriage and the rights of conscience, propert}^, and 
life, not excepted. And is it so ? Were the patriarchs 
at liberty to worship God or not, to honor their pa- 
rents or not, to commit adultery, lie, steal, and kill, or 
not, as they might choose, and with perfect impunity ? 
And is this the glorious liberty wherewith Christ 
maketh free ? No one pretends it. 

But it is said, the institutions and rights guarded iu 
the decalogue, with the laws of their observance, are, 
in their nature, of universal and unchanging obliga- 
tion, and of course are binding on all men, in eveiy 
age, and under every dispensation. Admit it; and 
how does it appear that the Sabbath, with the law of 
its observance, is not equally so ? At all events, the 
declaration that " God made not this covenant with 
the fathers " does not prove it otherwise. It proves 
no more of the law of the Sabbath than of every other 
law in the decalogue. If, therefore, the law of the 
maiTiage institution, "Thou shalt not commit adul- 
tery," is, in its nature, of universal and unchanging ob- 
ligation, equally so, for aught that this passage proves, 
is the law of the Sabbath. And the same is true ef 



72 THE SABBATH IN THE WILDERNESS. 

every command of the decalogue. All are equally 
parts of the covenant in question. If all the othei's, 
then, be of universal and unchanging obligation, and, 
as such, binding on all men, in all ages, and under 
every dispensation, notwithstanding the fact that the 
covenant, of which they are a part, was not made with 
the fathers, why is not the law of the Sabbath equally 
so ? TJieir association together in the same covenant 
surely argues them alike rather than unlike. At all 
events, if the one be purely Jewish, and the others not 
so, the proof lies elsewhere, not in this passage. This 
proves nothing either way ; or, if any thing, it proves 
only that the law of the Sabbath, like every other 
commandment of the decalogue, is of universal and 
ceaseless obligation. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SABBATH A SIGN. 

It is said, " God gave the Sabbath as a distinctive 
sign to the Israelites — a sign, that, for purposes of 
infinite wdsdom, he had chosen them as a peculiar 
people, and separated them from the nations of the 
earth. How could the Sabbath have been such a dis- 
tinctive sign, if it had been given to all nations ? " * 
The fact here asserted, and in the sense asserted, is 
supposed to be taught in Ex. xxxi. 13 — 17, and Ezek. 
XX. 12, 20. 

Admitting, for the moment, the correctness of this 
interpretation, I ask, 

1. When were the Israelites, as a nation, so chosen 
and separated ? Not at the time of their deliverance 
from Egypt, obviously ; nor at any subsequent period. 
They were delivered because they were God's chosen 
people already, not that they might afterwards become 
so. The truth is, they were originally chosen as God's 
peculiar people in the person of Abraham, their great 
progenitor. The Lord (Gen. xii. 1 — 3) said to 
Abram, " Get thee out of thy country, and from thy 
kindi'ed, and from thy father's house," (that was the 
commencement of the separation from the other na- 
tions,) "unto a land that 1 will show thee ; and I vnll 

* Grew, on the Sabbath, p. 5. 
7 



74 THE SABBATH 

make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and 
make thy name great." And afterwards, when he en- 
tered more formally into special covenant with him, 
he said, (Gen. xv. 13 — 16,) "Know of a surety that thy 
seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, 
and shall serve them ; and they shall afflict them four 
hundred years : and also that nation whom they shall 
serve will I judge ; and afterward shall they come out 
with great substance." Nor were this selection and 
covenant ever lost sight of through the whole line of 
the patriarchs and their posterity, from Abraham to 
Moses. They were repeatedly renewed to Isaac and 
to Jacob, as the heads and representatives of their 
posterity. And Joseph, the last of the patriarchal line 
of whom we have any account previous to Moses, 
when he was about to die, said (Gen. 1. 24) to his 
brethren, " I die ; but God will surely visit you, and 
Dririg you out of this land unto the land which he 
sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." Accord- 
ingly when, after his death, (Ex. i. 8, 13, 14,) " there 
arose a new king in Egypt, which knew not Joseph," 
and " the Egyptians made the children of Israel to 
serve with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard 
bondage," so that (Ex. ii. 23,) " the children of Israel 
sighed by reason of the bondage," then, we are in- 
formed, (Ex. ii. 24, 25,) " God heard their groaning, 
and God remembered his COVENANT with Abraham, 
ivith Isaac, and with Jacob, And God looked upon the 
children of Israel, and God had respect unto them." 
And when he first summoned Moses to the work of 
their deliverance, (Ex. iii. 6, 10,) the language was, 
"I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, thi3 
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob : I have seen the 



A SIGN. 75 

affliction of my people, and I am come down to de- 
liver them. Come now, therefore, and I will send thee 
unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my peo- 
ple, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." And when 
Moses first approached Pharaoh, (Ex. iv. 22, 23,) he 
was directed to say, " Thus saith the Lord, Israel is " 
(not is to be) " my son, even my first-born ; and I 
say unto thee. Let my son go, that he may serve me." 
They were therefore his people — his son, even his 
first-born, before their deliverance from Egypt, They 
had then, as truly as afterwards, their distinctive na- 
tional existence, as his chosen people ; and it was be- 
cause they had, and because he remembered his cove- 
nant with them as such, that he came down to deliver. 
And that whole interposition in their behalf was, not 
their original selection as his peculiar people, but only 
their re-selection, accomplished by the fulfilment of 
covenant engagements growing out of their original se- 
lection more than six hundred years before. For hun- 
dreds of years, then, they had been God's chosen people. 
As such, they had had a distinctive tribual or national 
existence. And can it be, that during all this period they 
were without the great distinctive sign of that exist- 
ence ? If they had no Sabbath, and the Sabbath were 
that sign, as alleged, they were without it. So that, 
on this supposition, they had thek distinctive existence 
as God's chosen people, but had no distinctive sign or 
badge of it until some centuries afler that existence 
began ! And can that be ? By no means. Either they 
had the Sabbath before, or it was not a distinctive sign 
of their distinctive existence as God's chosen people. 
But it was such sign. They had the Sabbath, then, 
from the begmning. This conclusion is unavoidable. 



76 THE SABBATH 

To talk of a sign instituted five hundred years or more 
after the commencement of the thing signified, is ab- 
surd. Besides, 

2. What were those '' purposes of infinite wisdom^'* 
on account of which the selection and separation in 
question were made? The great purpose, as every 
one knows, — that which overshadowed and included 
every other, — was to preserve and perpetuate among 
men the knowledge and worship of Jehovah as the 
true God, in distinction from all idol gods ; and thus 
to prepare the way for the coming and kingdom of 
Messiah. It was, that, amid the wide-spread and uni- 
versal prevalence of idolatry among the nations, there 
might be one nation of worshippers of the true God, 
out of which, in the fulness of time, he should come, 
who was to ransom man, and be the Desire of all na- 
tions. If, then, the Sabbath were given to the Hebrews 
as a distinctive sign of their selection and separation by 
God from other nations, it could be such a sign, only, 
as it served to mai^k them as the believers in and wor- 
shippers of Jehovah as the true God, in distinction 
from the worshippers of idol gods. It must have been 
such a thing, in its origin, nature, or design, that the 
Hebrews, in observing it, would, by that act, profess 
themselves believers in and worshippers of him, as the 
only true God ; so that its obsei*vaDce, in the very act 
of it, should be the great distinctive badge of their re- 
ligious profession, and a constant and impressive me- 
mento that Jehovah, not any idol, was the God who 
sanctified or set them apart to his service. There must 
also have been something about it so unique in its 
character, and so unlike every other institution and 
ordinance, that its observance would say, Jehovah is 



A SI(JN. 77 

the only true God, and we h'^Heve in and worship him 
accordingly, more significantly and impressively than 
it could be said by the obsen^ance of any other. How 
else could it be the great distinctive sign of their great 
distinctive national peculiarity ? How else become the 
'stinctive badge of their distinctive religious profes- 
sion as the worshippers of Jehovah ? 

Now, as a memorial of deliverance from Egypt, 
what was there in the Sabbath to make it, rather than 
any other ordinance or institution, such a distinguish- 
ing badge? The passover and the sanctification of the 
first-born were memorials of the same event, and, as 
signs, far more significant of the thing signified. To 
observe the Sabbath, then, as a memorial of this event, 
would not say, Jehovah is the only true God, and we 
believe in and serve him as such, any more significantly 
than to have observed either of these other institutions. 
Their obsei-vance would have been just as distinctive 
a badge of their belief in and worship of Jehovah, as 
the only true God, as was that of the Sabbath. Why, 
then, should the Sabbath have the precedence ? On 
this supposition, it should not have. But change the 
supposition — admit that the Sabbath was instituted at 
creation as a standing memorial of the fact, that in six 
days Jehovah created the heavens and the earth, and 
rested on the seventh day, and then the regular ob- 
servance of it by the Hebrews was a v/eekly national 
testimony^ that the world was not made by the gods 
and according to the theories of paganism, but by Je- 
hovah, and in six days, and that he, therefore, is the 
only living and true God. Such an institution, hold- 
ing forth in its regular observance such a testimony, 
was, therefore, the institution best fitted, of all others, 
7 * 



78 THE SABBATH 

to be the great distinctive sign or badge of their great 
distinctive pecuharity as the chosen people of God. Its 
observance, in this view of it, would most significantly 
mark them as the worshippers of Jehovah, and dis- 
tinguish and keep them separate from the idolatrous 
nations around them, and thus be a sign forever of the 
covenant between them and their God. And, 

3. This, indeed, is the true import of the passage (Ex. 
xxxi. 13 — 17) under consideration. The connection 
of the passage is this : God had given certain direc- 
tions in regard to building the tabernacle. Then, lest 
they should encroach on the Sabbath in doing it, he 
adds, "Verily" (Hebrew, JVevertheless) "my Sabbaths 
shall ye keep ; " and the reason assigned for it is, in 
the Hebrew, literally this : " For it is a sign between 
me and you throughout your generations, for to make 
it known" (n;?^S, ladaat), '' ilmt I, Jehovah, am he that 

sanctifies you." As a whole, then, the passage is as 
if God had said, "You are about to be employed in 
an important and sacred work, one requiring close 
attention and great desp^ tch ; nevertheless, be care- 
ful not to encroach on holy time. Let the business^ 
m-gent as it is, cease during the hallowed hours of the 
Sabbath ; for the Sabbath is a sign between me and 
you throughout your generations, by the keeping of 
which it is to be known that I, Jehovah, am the God 
that sanctifies or sets you apart as mine." Such is 
the obvious and true import of the passage. And this 
import gives us the Sabbath as that sign, whose ob- 
servance was to tell the world who and what their God 
was. Its observance was, therefore, the public profes- 
sion of their religious faith — a public avowal that they 
were not idolaters, but the worshippers of Jehovah. Of 



A SIGN. 79 

course, apostasy from the sign was, practically, and in 
effect, apostasy from the thing signified. It was prac- 
tically a renunciation of their religious faith, and apos- 
tasy from their God. Of course, it was substantial 
idolatry, and, as such, a treasonable offence, punish- 
able with death. 

Moreover, on examining the passage further, we 
find, (v. 16,) that the children of Israel were "to ob- 
serve the Sabbath throughout their generations as a 
perpetual covenant," or standing ordinance ; that so 
observed, (v. 17,) it was a sign between Jehovah and 
them forever ; and finally, we learn what that was in 
the Sabbath, which made it such a sign, rather than 
any other ordinance. It was not, that God, without 
any fitness in the thing itself, had arbitrarily fixed it 
so ; nor that God had brought them out of Egypt. 
Not a word do v/e hear of any such reason. But "It 
is a sign between me and the children of Israel for- 
ever." Why ? What makes it so ? " For in six days 
the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh 
day he rested, and was refreshed." Here, then, we 
have it in distinct terms that it was the connection of 
the Sabhath with the creation, that made it, rather than 
the passover, or any other ordinance, the sign in ques- 
tion. What that connection was we have already seen. 
Jehovah made the world in six days, and rested on the 
seventh, and set apart the seventh to be observed as a 
perpetual memorial of what he had done. As such 
memorial, every individual who kept it, thereby de- 
clared his belief, that the world was not made by the 
gods, and according to the theories of paganism, but 
by Jehovah ; and that he, therefore, not they, was the 
real Creator, and of course the only living and true 



80 THE SABBATH 

God. A memorial, holding forth such a testimony in 
its observance, was, in its very nature, a distinctive 
sign or badge of the w^orshippers of Jehovah. They 
could not keep it w^ithout thereby marking themselves 
as worshippers of him, and not of idols. They could 
not neglect or refuse to keep it without losing their 
distinctive badge, and becoming so far identified with 
idolaters. It was preeminently the badge of their 
religious faith. To observe it, was to profess faith in 
Jehovah as the only true God. Not to observe it, was 
to say, Jehovah is not the only true God, and was tan- 
tamount to apostasy or idolatry ; and as that govern- 
ment was a theocracy, such apostasy or idolatry was 
virtual high-treason. No wonder, then, that God se- 
lected this as the sign, rather than some other ordi- 
nance, and then placed such an estimate upon it, and 
dealt out such a penalty upon its violation. The Sab- 
bath was fitted, in its nature, to be such a. sign or badge. 
As such, the obligation to observe it was only another 
form of the obligation to have no other gods before 
Jehovah, and was therefore equally sacred, and its vio- 
lation equally criminal. 

In this view of the case, all is plain. Every thing 
is just what we should expect. For every thing there 
is a reason^ good and sufficient ; while, on the suppo- 
sition that the Sabbath was originally given as a me- 
morial of deliverance from Egypt, and yet selected as 
the sign in question, all is arbitrary, without reason, 
significancy, or aim. Moreover, in this view, too, we 
see at once why the Sabbath, with its connected priv- 
ileges and rights, was to the idolatrous Egyptians the 
most obnoxious of all the Hebrew peculiarities, and 
therefore among the first of those peculiarities to be 



A SIGN. 81 

taken away, and the last to be restored. It, with its 
privileges and rights, was their great distinctive badge 
as the worshippers of Jehovah. Its observance was 
therefore their weekly, national testimony against the 
gods of Egypt. No w^onder their oppressors took 
it aw^ay. And when God came down to deliver, no 
wonder that, as a means to its end, or as involving 
the question of their religious and civil freedom, this 
became the great question at issue. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE ARGUMENT RECAPITULATED AND CLOSED. 

Suppose we now briefly review the ground over 
which we have passed. We have shown that in the 
first mention of the Sabbath, (Gen. ii. 2, 3,) there is 
every thing to prove that it was instituted at creation, 
the time specified, and was as truly one of the great 
permanent arrangements established for the race, as 
was the marriage institution, or any of the other ar- 
rangements then first brought into being. We have 
shown that the argument from geology is without 
force ; that from Adam to Moses, there is every allu- 
sion to, and mention of, its existence and observance, 
which, in such and so short a history, ought to be ex- 
pected ; that in the deliverance from Egypt, consid- 
ered as a means to its appropriate end, it, with its 
connected privileges and rights, was the great ques- 
tion at issue, and the very reason of the deliverance ; 
that it was not originally given as a memorial of that 
deliverance, nor in the wilderness ; that the fact of 
God's not having made the same covenant with the 
fathers, as with those he brought out of Egypt, no 
more proves that the fathers had not the Sabbath, 
with the law of its observance, than that they were 
without every other command of the decalogue ; and, 
finally, that the observance of the Sabbath, as a stand- 
ing ordinance, became a sign between Jehovah and 



THE SABBATH IN THE DECALOGUE. 83 

the Hebrews only by virtue of its connection with 
creation, as a memorial of that event ; and, therefore, 
that the fact of its being such a sign only proves it to 
have existed from the first, and to have come down, 
from age to age, as, every where and at all times, the 
same great distinctive badge of the worshippers of 
Jehovah. In prosecuting the argument, I remark, 

2. The Sabbath is spoken of in the decalogue as 
an institution previously existing^ and is there, as well 
as in the prophets, incorporated with other laws ad- 
mitted to be of original and ceaseless obligation. 
Without expanding the argument, I observe, (1.) It 
is the only law of the ten, that is claimed to be 
merely Jewish. (2.) It is a part of that code which 
the Savior declared (Matt. v. 17, 18) should never 
pass away. (3.) It is coupled often (e. g. Is. Iviii.) 
with the doing of justice and judgment, and letting 
the oppressed go free — duties which all admit to be 
of unchanging and ceaseless obligation. (4.) The 
term " Remember " is indicative of its preexistence. 
But without laying stress upon the mere phraseology, 
if the law, "Thou shalt not steal," was evidence of 
preexisting rights of property, and not of the original 
institution of those rights ; if the law, " Thou shalt 
not commit adultery," argued with equal clearness a 
preexisting marriage institution, with its conjugal and 
filial relations, and not their original estabhshment ; 
and so of the other laws of the decalogue, if their 
grand object was, as is admitted, not to institute their 
respective rights and institutions as new, but onty to 
guard them as old and permanent ones, why must 
not the same be true of the law of the Sabbath ? 

3. Ancient testimony confirms the doctrine of the 



84 THE SABBATH 

institution of the Sabbath at creation. Writers, some 
of whom lived more than a thousand years before 
the Christian era, speak of the division of time into 
weeks, and of the special observance of the seventh 
day of the week, as a season for diversions or the 
offering of sacrifices to their gods, as facts existing 
among various heathen nations. The following is a 
specimen of their testimony : — 

Homer says, " Afterwards came the seventh, the sacred 
day." 

iiZe^i'ofZ says, "The seventh day is holy." 

Callimachus speaks of the seventh day as holy. 

Lucian says, " The seventh day is given to school-boys 
as a holiday." 

Porphyry says, " The Phenicians consecrated one day in 
seven as holy." 

Josephus says, " There is no city, either of Greeks or 
barbarians, or any other nation, where the religion of the 
Sabbath is not known." 

Grotius says, " That the memory of the creation being 
performed in seven days, was preserved not only among 
the Greeks and Italians, but among the Celts and Indians, 
all of whom divided their time into weeks." 

Eusebius says, " Almost all the philosophers and poets 
acknowledge the seventh day as holy." 

Similar testimonies might be added, showing that a 
division of time into weeks obtained also among the As- 
syrians, Egyptians, Romans, Gauls, Britons, and Ger- 
mans. Now, situated as many of these nations were in 
respect to the Jews, and prevailing as the customs in 
question did at so early a period among them, it is 
manifest that they could not have been derived from 



I'N ITS ORIGINAL DESIGN. 85 

the Jews after the time of Moses. They must have 
had an earUer origin. Besides, is it siipposable that all 
these nations, if they had the opportunity, would have 
copied the custom from the hated Jew^s? Never. 
The only rational solution is this — that the Sabbath 
was instituted at creation ; that with it began the 
division of time into weeks ; that as men multiplied, 
and fell off to the worship of idols, they still carried 
with them, from age to age, this septenary division of 
time, and, to a greater or less extent, a perverted ob- 
servance of the seventh day itself. When, therefore, 
we find this division of time among the nations, and 
the seventh day itself in some cases a special holi- 
day for the children, and in others a season for offer- 
ings and feasts to idols, we have in these facts the 
relics and the perverted observances of an institution 
established at creation, observed by the patriarchs, 
transmitted by them to the nations, and, in its umper- 
verted observance, designed to be a badge in all time 
of the worshippers of Jehovah as the only true God. 
4. The original design of the Sabbath makes it 
equally manifest that it was instituted at creation, 
and is perpetually binding. This design is three- 
fold : — (1.) to commemorate the fact of creation by Je- 
hovah ; (2.) to afford a period of needful rest to man 
and beast from the ordinary labors of life ; and, (3.) to 
afford an opportunity for spiritual instruction, im- 
provement, and worship. That these three elements 
entered originally into the very nature and design of 
the Sabbath, is obvious from what has already been 
said. It was (Gen. ii. 2, 3, and Ex. xx. 11) because 
the Lord made the world in six days, and rested on 
the seventh, that he blessed and hallowed, or set it 
8 



86 THE SABBATH 

apart as a season of religious rest and worship. It 
was that their children, strangers, servants, and 
beasts, (Deut. v. 14,) "might rest as well as they," 
and (Ex. xxiii. 12) " be refreshed," that the Hebrews 
were strictly enjoined to keep the Sabbath, and (Ex. 
XX. 10) "not do any work" thereon. And the whole 
arrangement together was, that parent, child, servant, 
and stranger, might alike enjoy a season of religious 
rest, improvement, and worship. As a memorial of 
creation by Jehovah, its standing observance was a 
standing testimony that the world was made by him, 
and not by idols ; that he, therefore, was the only true 
God, and that those who observed the day were his 
worshippers. It thus chronicled the true origin of 
the world, and was, in its very nature, a distinctive 
badge of the worshippers of Jehovah. As affording 
a peiiod of rest from the ordinary labors of life, the 
standing observance of the Sabbath was a standing 
provision to meet those physical necessities of man 
and beast, which are not met by the return of day 
and night As affording a 'period^ set apart, sacredly, 
to spiritual instruction, improvement, and worship, it was 
just such a standing provision as the case required 
to meet the demands of man's spiritual being. In 
either aspect of its design, then, that design proves 
conclusively that the Sabbath was instituted at crea- 
tion, and that, in all its sacredness of obligation, it is 
to live and be binding on man while man lives on 
earth. If J as a chronicler of creation, and a badge of 
faith to distinguish the worshippers of Jehovah from 
those of idols, there was a reason for the Sabbath in 
the time of Moses, that reason is equally valid for 
its establishment at creation, and its continuance, 



IN ITS ORIGINAL DESIGN. 87 

as an institution, to the end of time. If, as a season 
of rest and worship, to meet the demands of man's 
physical and spiritual being, there was a reason for 
it then, that reason had equal force from the begin- 
ning, and will have to the end of time — as long as 
man remains man. Take w^iich aspect of its design 
3^ou will, and in each and all of them you can find 
no period of man's existence, from the creation on- 
ward, in which the reason for the Sabbath, growing 
out of its design, has not existed, and will not con- 
tinue to exist, in full and unabated force. What, then, 
is the inference ? Just what it is in respect to the 
marriage institution and the laws of its observance. 
Just what it is in respect to the rights of property, 
person, and life, and the laws of their observance — 
manente ratione, manet ipsa lex — the reason of the law 
remaining, the law itself remains. Or, to suit the 
maxim to the case, the reason for the law existing 
always, the law itself exists always, and, beginning 
therefore with the race, exists for the race, and is to 
end only with the race, in its present state of being. 
Such is the conclusion of sound philosophy and 
common sense. 

5. I observe, then, finally, that there is a permanent 
demand for the Sabbath, in the nature, relations, and ne- 
cessities of man: and, therefore, a demand for its in- 
stitution at creation, and its continuance to the end 
of time. The argument might be expanded at great 
length. My design, however, requires brevity. I 
remark, then, 

(1.) Experience shows that the Sabbath is de- 
manded by the physical necessities of man. It proves 
that men, and all laboring animals, whether their 



88 THE SABCATH DEMANDED 

labor be mental or bodily, or both, need at least one 
day in seven for rest from their ordinary labors — 
that they will live longer and do more, in the same 
period, with it than without it. Two testimonies, as 
specimens of a thousand similar ones, must suffice. 

On the 22d of June, 1839, A Committee on Vice and 
Immorality, of the Pennsylvania Legislature, made a 
report relative to the suspension of labor on the pub- 
lic improvements in that state, on the Sabbath. The 
committee refer to certain petitions that had been re- 
ceived on the subject, and say, — 

" They (the petitioners) assert, as the result of their 
own experience, that both man and beast can do more 
work by resting one day in seven, than by working the 
whole seven ; and your committee feel free to confess 
that their experience as farmers, business men, or legisla- 
tors, corresponds with the assertion/' 

In the year 1838, Dr. Parre, an eminent physician 
in London, of forty years' practice, gave the following 
testimony before a committee of the British par- 
liament : — 

*' The use of the Sabbath, medically speaking, is that of 
a day of rest. It is a day of compensation for the inade- 
quate restorative power of the body under continual labor 
and excitement. A physician always has respect to the 
restorative power, because, if once this be lost, his healing 
office is at an end. The ordinary exertions of man run 
down the circulation every day of his life ; and the first 
general law of nature, by which God prevents man from 
destroying himself, is the alternating of day with night, 
that repose may succeed action. But though night ap- 



BY man's physical NECESSITIES. 89 

parently equalizes the circulation well, yet it does not 
sufficiently restore its balance for the attainment of a long 
life. Hence one day in seven, by the bounty of Provi- 
dence, is thrown in as a day of compensation, to perfect, 
by its repose, the animal system. The Sabbatical institu- 
tion is not simply a precept partaking of the nature of a 
political institution, but it is to be numbered among the 
natural duties, if the preservation of life be admitted to be 
a duty, and the premature destruction of it a suicidal act. 
This is said simply as a physician, without any respect 
at all to the theological question. I have found it essen- 
tial to my own v^^ell-being, as a medical man, to abridge 
mj labors on the Sabbath to what is actually necessary. 
I have frequently observed the premature death of physi- 
cians from continued exertion. In warm climates, and in 
active service, this is painfully apparent. I have advised 
the clergyman, in lieu of his Sabbath, to rest one day in 
the week; it forms a continual prescription of mine. I 
have seen many destroyed by their duties on that day. I 
v/ould say, further, that, quitting the grosser evils of mere 
animal living from over-stimulation, and undue exercise 
of body, the working of the mind in one continual train 
of thought, is the destruction of life in the most distin- 
guished classes of society, and that senators themselves 
need reform in that respect. I have seen many of them 
destroyed by neglecting this economy of life.'' 

(2.) Experience shows that the Sabbath is demand- 
ed, ill like manner, by the moral necessities of man. 
Man is naturally a religious beings and, as such, ever 
has had, and ever will have, some object of religious 
respect and reverence. If he do not worship and 
adore the true God, the verj^ elements of his being 
drive him to some false god. Skeptics may deny 
this ; but in the very hom.age thejv themselves occa- 
8* ^' 



90 THE SABBATH DEMANDED 

sionally or annually pay to the bones or the birthday 
of some sainted unbeliever, they are a proof to them- 
selves, that man was made to reverence and worship 
some superior ; that such homage and worship are 
among the native elements ofkis being ; and that adore 
and worship some God, true or false, he always must 
and will. Of course religious instruction, improve- 
ment, and worship, of some kind, are among the per- 
manent and ceaseless demands of his being. These 
he must have, and these, true or false, he will have. 
But he cannot have them without occasional or stated 
times for it. 

Moreover, man is also naturally a social being. The 
social in his nature is indeed one of its most powerful 
elements. You can never instruct, elevate, and fh'e, 
the man more effectually than when you take advan- 
tage of the social within him. Religious instruction, 
improvement, and worship, then, to address themselves 
to the whole man, and be most effective, must be of a 
])ub]ic and social character, as well as private. Of 
course there must be public assemblies — "not for- 
saking the assembling of yourselves together, as the 
manner of some is." And these, that people may 
know when to come together, must be held at stated 
and regular times. In the social and the religious of 
man, then, we have a permanent and ceaseless demand 
for the regular social opportunities and privileges of 
the Sabbath. Wherever this demand is met by the 
existence and due observance of the Sabbath, we 
ought to expect, as its legitimate result, the highest 
condition of spiritual improvement and v>^elfare. And, 
on the other hand, without any such anticipation, if 
we find, as the result of actual experience, that where 



91 

the Sabbath does exist, and is truly observed, man's 
spiritual welfare is most effectually promoted, we have 
in that fact the proof that there is such a demand in 
the very nature and necessities of his being. For if 
the demand do not exist, — if it do not lie imbedded in 
the very nature of man, and the laws of his being, — 
then the Sabbath, wdth its opportimities and obser- 
vances, must conflict \vith that nature, and do violence 
to those laws, and, doing so, must injm*e rather than 
benefit man, and make him worse instead of better. 

What, then, are the facts ? Is the moral and spirit- 
ual condition of those communities where there is no 
Sabbath, or only a perverted one, in advance of those 
where there is one, and one observed according to its 
true spirit and intent ? Let universal experience an- 
swer. Are those individuals who truly keep the Sab- 
bath in a worse spu'itual condition than tiiose who do 
not ? Are they less ready to do good to the bodies 
and souls of thek fellow-men ? When Great Britain 
gave freedom to eight hundred thousand slaves, was 
it the Sabbath or the anti-Sabbath men that roused 
her to that deed of mercy, and compelled her to carry 
it through ? Was it the Sabbath or the anti-Sabbath 
men that originated and that now^ sustain the great 
work of missions among the heathen, and indeed 
among the destitute at home ? The mission at the 
Sandwich Islands has converted a heathen to a Chris- 
tian people. It is, moreover, so far as the missionaries 
are concerned, an anti-slavery mission. What no- 
Sabbath man, since he became such, ever has, or ever 
intends to lift a finger for its support ? Or, if the plea 
be, that such s-upport cannot be rendered without 
lending a sanction to the coiTupt channels through 



92 THE SABBATH DEMANDED 

which that mission now receives support, then where 
are the missions, at home or abroad, originated and sus- 
tained by no-Sabbath men themselves ? Nay, among 
all the religious visits ever made, and all the great re- 
forms ever attempted, by no-Sabbath men or women, 
when or where has one of them ever made a religious 
visit to a heathen community, or attempted a reform on 
heathen ground ? And where are the regenerated and 
disinthralied communities that have sprung into being 
as the result of such labors of love ? The command of 
the Savior, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
gospel to every creature,'' has bean as distinctly before, 
and as imperiously, binding on them as on others. 
Yet when and where have they even begun or at- 
tempted to obey it, in respect to the entire heathen 
world ? The History of Missions, I believe, has yet 
to chronicle the event. 

Or to vary the test, man, according to the Scriptures, 
is " dead in trespasses and sins." To be saved he "must 
be born again." Now, wiiatever may be the views 
of different individuals in regard to the nature of this 
new birth, all agree that it is such a spiritual renova- 
tion as inspires tiie man with habitual respect, rever- 
ence, and aifectioa for God; such as reclaims the 
vicious, reforms the intemperate, and makes the indo- 
lent industrious, and the dishonest honest. To effect 
it is therefore the best thing that can be done for the 
spiritual well-being of man, either here or hereafter. 
Nov/, there are not a few of the believers in the Sab- 
bath who can point to their own labors and instruc- 
tions on that day as the means of thus renovating and 
reclaiming their fellow-men. They can point you to 
individuals, in instances not a few, who will stand up 



BY man's moral necessities. 93 

as " brands plucked from the burning," and as " living 
epistles known and read of all men," and testify be- 
fore all to the healthful and reclaiming influence of 
the Sabbath. Yes, there are thousands on thousands 
in this land who owe to the Sabbath, with its precious 
privileges and instructions, all that they are of charac- 
ter and of destiny, both for this world and for that 
to come, and who, if called upon, would so testify. 
Where, now, are the individuals that have been so 
renovated and reclaimed by men of the other views ? 
Where are the debauchees, and the profligates, and the 
swearers, and the gamblers, and the thieves, and the 
liars, and the drunkards, once " dead in trespasses and 
sins," but now " born again " and reclaimed, and 
ready to stand up and testify that they have been 
plucked from ruin by the no-Sabbath men and the 
no-Sabbath views ? Are the men — is the man so 
renovated and reclaimed to be found? I, at leastj 
have yet to see him. 

Or, passing from their disposition to do good to 
others, suppose we examine the spiritual condition 
of the men themselves. Are they who believe in 
and keep the Sabbath, more disposed than others to 
evil, more bent upon their own indulgence, more 
reckless of their neighbors' rights, reputation, and 
property, — in a word, more bold and frequent in the 
commission of crimes, that war upon society, and set 
human and divine law alike at defiance? Let us 
hear the witnesses. 

Sir Matthew Hale said, '° That of the persons who 
were convicted of capital crimes v/hile he was on the 
bench, he found only a few who would not confess 
that they began their career of wickedness by a neg- 



94 THE SABBATH DEMANDED 

lect of the duties of the Sabbath, and by vicious con- 
duct on that day." 

In 1838, before the committee of the British parlia- 
ment, the Rev. David Ruel, who had been twenty-eight 
years chaplain of prisons in London, and who had 
had, on a low calculation, one hundred thousand 
prisoners under his care, testified as follows : — " I do 
not recollect a single case of capital offence where 
the party has not been a Sabbath- breaker ; and in 
many cases, they have assured me that Sabbath- 
breaking was the first step in the course of crime. 
Indeed, I may say, in reference to prisoners of all 
classes, that in nineteen cases out of twenty, they are 
persons who not only neglected the Sabbath, but all 
the other ordinances of religion." 

Such testimony might be multiplied to any extent. 
What does it prove ? Obviously, that there is that 
in the Sabbath and its right observance which just 
meets the physical and spiritual necessities of man, 
and which, because it meets these dernands of his being, 
makes it a most effectual promoter of his physical 
and spiritual welfare. And what is this but saying, 
in other terms, that there is, in the very nature, re- 
lations, and necessities of man, a permanent and 
ceaseless demand for the Sabbath? And now, with 
this demand distinctly before him, and with a heart 
always intent on man's best good, is it to be believed, 
that God did not provide for meeting it by the insti- 
tution of the Sabbath at the outset, or that he does 
not mean to provide for it in future by its continu- 
ance to the end of time ? By no means. The truth 
is, the Sabbath, as an institution, — not the particular 
day of its observance, — is as really founded in the 



BY man's moral necessities. 95 

nature and relations of man, and gi*ows as naturally 
out of his physical and moral necessities, as does that 
of marriage. Both must have had their origin with 
the race, and must be equally designed to continue, 
while the race does in its present state of being. 
Indeed, the laws of their observance, as we have 
seen, no less than those which guard the rights of 
conscience, property, person, and life, are equally a 
part of the common law of man, and, as such, bind- 
ing on all, in all time. Can it be doubted, then, that 
the Sabbath, as an institution, is perpetually binding ? 



CHANGE OF THE DAY. 



CHAPTER IX. 

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION, AND PRELIMI 
NARY REMARKS. 

We are now prepared to prosecute the second ques- 
tion at issue in this discussion — viz. Has any particular 
day been set apart, by divine appointment, for the obser- 
vance of the Sabbath, and if so, what day ? 

All agree that, originally, the seventh day of the 
v^eek was so set apart. But from some cause the 
Christian world has generally fallen away from the 
observance of the seventh to that of the first. The 
question, therefore, practically assumes this form — • 
viz. Has the first day of the tveek been set apart, by divine 
appointment, to be observed, in place of the seventh, as the 
Sabbath'^ Has God authorized the change"^ That he 
has^ I shall attempt to prove. Before doing so, how- 
ever, I wish to make a few preliminary remarks. 
And, 

1. The change of the day is a question entirely 
distinct from that of the perpetual obligation of the 
Sabbath as an institution. The day selected for its 
observance may remain the same or be changed. And 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 97 

SO may the mode of its obsei-vance — provided only that 
its true intent and great end be preserved. But wheth- 
er changed or not, is one question. Whether there is 
such an institution perpetually existing and perpetually 
binding on all, is another. And the two questions are 
entirely distinct, the one from the other. Therefore, 

2, If God has not authorized a change of the day 
from the seventh to the first, then the seventh is the 
Sabbath, and is to be kept as such. Should we fail in 
our proof of a divine warrant for the change, it will 
not follow that there is no Sabbath. It will only fol- 
low that the seventh day of the week is to be kept as 
Sabbath instead of the first. You must admit the 
change, and keep the first day of the week as Sabbath, 
with all the sacredness of original obligation, or go 
back to the seventh, and keep that. Change or no 
change, the Sabbath, as an institution, remains the 
same, the law of its observance as sacredly binding as 
ever, and the man who breaks it as palpable a violator 
of the divine command. Decide the question of the 
day, then, as you will, the institution and the obligation 
to keep it remain. If you reject the first, you are shut 
up to the seventh as your Sabbath. In either event, 
you are cut ofiT from no-Sabbathism, and are bound to 
observe one day or the other, or rank yourself a vio- 
lator of divine command. 

3. If God has authorized a change of day, that does 
not change or obliterate the obligation to keep it holy 
to the Lord. Be " Sabbath-day " the seventh or the 
first, the obligation, " Remember the Sabbath-day to 
keep it holy," is the same — applying equally to the one 
as to the other. In other terms, there is a plain dis- 
tinction between the Sabbath, as an institution, and the 

9 



UO CHANGE OF THE DAY. 

particular day selected for its observance. This is ob- 
vious from what has been said. Besides, but for such 
distinction, the command must run, "Remember the 
seventh day," &c. — thus making the institution and 
the day identical ; or, at least, laying as much stress on 
the one as on the other. But the form of phraseology 
now is, " Remember the Sabhath-daj to keep it holy." 
Here we have the sum total of the command, but not 
a word yet in respect to the particular day of the week, 
which is " Sabbath-day." And it is only as God pro- 
ceeds to direct how it is to be kept, that we learn what 
the particular day is ; and then the specification comes 
in only incidentally, or as a matter of course. No 
stress is laid upon the particular day of the week, as 
if that were vital to the institution. The great burden 
of the 'injunction is, to keep ^' Sahhath-da.y^^ holy, be it 
what day of the week it may; and the great object of 
the specification is, to show what is meant by so keep- 
ing it, not to point out or lay stress upon the par- 
ticular day, as if that, rather than some other, were 
essential to the existence of the institution itself Of 
course, a change of the day can make no change in 
the institution itself, or in the obligation to keep it. 
These, in all essentials, remain the same — perpetually 
existing and perpetually binding, whatever the changes 
which God may authorize in respect to the time or 
mode of their observance. Indeed, 

4. The Sabbath, as an institution, cannot be abro- 
gated. Founded as it is, like the marriage institution, 
in the nature, relations, and necessities of man, God 
can no more abrogate it, and the law of its obsei-vance, 
than he can that of marriage, with its conjugal and 
filial relations, and the laws of their observance. Both 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 99 

Stand upon the same footing. Both grow alike out of 
man's nature, relations, and necessities. Both are 
equally the ceaseless demand of his being. The laws 
of their observance, as we have seen, are equally a part 
of universal common law. They are alike, in precept 
and in penalty, the intrenchments of the Almighty, 
thrown around their respective institutions for their 
sacred observance and ceaseless perpetuity. In these, 
therefore, there can, in the nature of things, be no 
change. The institutions, and the obhgation to ob- 
serve them, m their general scope and spirit, must 
stand to the end of time. But, 

5. While no cliange can take place in the Sabbath, 
as an institution, or in the obligation to observe it, God 
may, and we should naturally expect that he would, 
regulate the time and manner of its observance ; that 
he would select such a day, and direct it to be kept in 
such manner as to make it best answer its great de- 
sign as a season of religious rest, improvement, and 
worship. Such selection of the day is of course of the 
nature of a positive institution, and is subject, like every 
thing else of that nature, to change or abrogation, 
whenever there are good and sufficient reasons for it. 
Therefore, 

6. Whenever such reasons exist, w^e should expect 
the change as a matter of course. Certain reasons 
determined the selection, at the outset, of the seventh 
as " Sabbath-day." If, now, in the course of events, 
other and superior reasons come into existence, in fa- 
vor of the selection of the first in place of the seventh, 
a change of day is of course to be expected. Indeed, 
the reasons for such change existing, we have in that 
fact not only a warrant for expecting it, but presump- 
tive evidence that it has actually been made. 



100 CHANGE OF THE DAY. 

7. If any change in the day has been made, it was 
made, as all admit, by Jesus Christ, or by his au- 
thority. 

8. Christ had the right to change it, if he saw fit 
(1.) He claimed such right. On a certain occasion, 
(Mark ii. 23 — 28,) the Pharisees complained of the dis- 
ciples as Sabbath- breakers, because, in going through 
the cornfields on the Sabbath, they had plucked and 
eaten some of the ears. Christ justified them, not by 
asserting that there was, or was to be, no Sabbath, 
but by showing that what they did was not a violation 
of it, according to its original and true intent. His 
argument was. First, they have only done a work of 
necessity and mercy, and such a work, like David's 
eating the show-bread, is perfectly lawful on the Sab- 
bath. For, Second, the Sabbath was never meant to 
exclude such works. "The Sabbath was made for 
(dia ton, for the sake of) man, and not man for (dia to, 
for the sake of) the Sabbath." Man was made first, and 
then the Sabbath made to fit him, and subserve his 
w^elfare, and not the Sabbath first, and he made to fit 
and subserve it. Its grand design, then, is to meet 
man's necessities, not to set them aside, or to meet one 
class of them at the expense of another. It assumes 
that the lower and ordinary demands of his being for 
necessary food and raiment are met ; and it then comes 
in, iiot to set these aside, but to meet other demands, 
and especially the higher and holier ones of his spiritual 
existence. In a word, it was meant to bless the whole 
man, and man every where. Moreover, (Matt. xii. 6 — 8,) 
"I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than 
the temple. And if ye had known what this meaneth, 
I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have 
condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man," the 



PllELIMINARY REMARKS. 101 

Master of these whom you so unjustly accuse, "is 
Lord even of the Sabbath-day," and, as such, can au- 
thorize them to pluck the corn to satisfy their hunger, 
even if, as it is not, it were unlawful to do so without 
it. As Lord of the Sabbath, I have and claim the right 
to regulate its observance. So that, in either case, my 
disciples are not violators of the Sabbath. Such, plain- 
ly, was the drift of his argument. But a right, as Lord 
of the Sabbath, to regulate its observance, is plainly a 
right, for good and sufficient reasons, to change the 
day, or make any other change in respect to it, not in- 
compatible with its continued existence and obliga- 
tion. 

Besides, (2.) It was Christ, ivho, as Creator of the 
world, originally instituted the Sabbath, and selected 
the seventh as the day for its observance. This is ob- 
vious from several passages of Scripture. In Heb. i. 
10, God is represented as saying to the Son, ''Thou^ 
Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the 
earth ; and the heavens are the works of thine hands." 
See also v. 2 — " by whom also he made the worlds." 
The apostle John declares, (John i. 3,) "All things 
were made by him ; and without him was not any 
thing made that vv^as made." Here we have it, in as 
distinct terms as possible, that Jesus Christ was the 
Creator of the world. Whether he did this with de- 
rived or underived power, as the inferior or the equal 
of the Father, alters not the fact that he did it. It was 
therefore he, who, as Creator, rested from the work of 
creation on the seventh day, and because he so rested, 
afterwards set it apart as a day of religious rest and 
worship for man. As Creator, then, he was original 
Lord of the Sabbath. He selected the day for its ob- 



102 CHANGE OF THE DAY. 

servance in the beginning. Of course his right is per- 
fect, for good and sufficient reasons, to select another 
day. And if he has done it, or authorized it to be 
done, it has been done by divine authority — by the 
same authority, in fact, which originally selected the 
seventh day. 

9. The change which has actually taken place, 
(whether authorized or not remains to be seen,) is just 
such a one as the case allows, and as ive should expect 
in the event of any change. It leaves the nature, de- 
sign, and obligation of the Sabbath as a day of religious 
rest, improvement, and worship, the same as they were 
before. It makes no change in the office of the Sab- 
bath as a "sig-n" between God and his people, except 
to enhance its significancy. In its true and hearty 
observance, the Sabbath is as distinctive a badge of 
God's people now as it ever was. The change in the 
day of its observance, then, is only a change of its char- 
acter as a memorial — it being now a memorial of 
Christ's work of redemption, instead of his work of 
creation. This is just such a change as the case al- 
lows, and as we should expect in the event of any. It 
can take place without affecting at all the existence 
and perpetuity of the Sabbath as an institution. That 
remains the same. 

10. The nature of the case demands just such a 
change as has actually taken place, and is so far pre- 
sumptive evidence of its having taken place by divine 
authority. For, the reason for such change existing, 
why should not God authorize it ? The Sabbath was 
originally a memorial of creation. But the work of 
redemption is one of a vastly higher chai'acter and 
greater importance, inasmuch as it looks more directly 



PJIELIMINARY REMARKS. 103 

to the well-being of the soul, and is fitted to add higher 
glory to the Godhead. So the Bible regards it. Hence, 
in comparing the one v/ith the other, it predicts a time 
when creation shall be comparatively forgotten in the 
superior glories of redemption. " Behold," (Isa. Ixv. 
17,) "I create new heavens and a new earth; and the 
former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." 
Here, then, in this fact we have a reason demanding 
the change in question. As a memorial of creation 
completed, the seventh Vv'as the appropriate day. But 
in redemption completed we have a work of superior 
greatness and glory. Why should it not be chronicled 
by its appropriate day ? Plainly the demand for it is 
of greater force than was that for the original selection 
of the seventh. Is it to be supposed that God has met 
the demand in the one case, and not in the other ? 
By no means. 



CHAPTER X. 

NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT FOR A CHANGE OF 
THE DAY. 

We are now prepared to prosecute the inquiry 
whether Christ made or authorized a change of the 
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. 

Great stress is usually laid here upon the produc- 
tion of some express precept, declaring in so many 
terms that Christ made or authorized the change. 
" Give us your text " — " give us your text " — " To 
the law and to the testimony," is the confident and 
supposed unanswerable demand. 

True, the question is purely one of fact, and, as 
such, is to be authoritati\ cly settled only by an ap- 
peal " to the law and to the testimony." But the ab- 
sence of a text of the kind demanded, does by no 
means prove, that the evidence of the law or the tes- 
timony is wanting. Moreover, if the evidence of the 
law were wanting, that of the testimony, if clear, 
would be conclusive. In conducting the appeal, then, 
"to the law and to the testimony," there are three 
forms of the argument, either of which is conclusive 
of the fact of the change, and of a divine warrant 
for it. 

(1.) If we find an express precept declaring the 
change made or authorized, we have " the law." If 



NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT. 105 

we then find, in the history of Christ and his early- 
disciples, distinct traces of a corresponding practice, 
we have " the testimony ; " and in the two united, we 
have the evidence of " law and testimony." (2.) If we 
find an express precept affirming the right to change 
the day, we have " the law." If, then, we find actual 
traces of such a change in the conduct of those who 
had this right, we have " the testimony ; " and in the 
two united we have the evidence again of " law and 
testimony" both. And, (3.) if we can find no express 
precept of either kind, yet if we can trace the fact of 
the actual change, through witness after witness, from 
the present time up to the primitive Christians and 
the apostles themselves, we have, then, the evidence 
of" the testimony ; " and in the character of the apos- 
tles and early disciples, we have the proof indispu- 
table that such a change was never made by them 
without the authority of their Master for it. And in 
this way, too, we get, in the end, the evidence of " law 
and testimony " both. " To the law and to the testi- 
mony," then, be our appeal. 

That we have a precept or a passage saying, in so 
many terms, that Christ or the apostles made the 
change in question, is not pretended. No more have 
we a passage saying, in so many terms, that men are 
moral agents, or that they have equal rights, or that 
slave-holding, slave-trading, spirit- dealing, and the like, 
are wicked. Are these things therefore not wicked ? 
Are men machines, and not endowed with equal 
rights? By no means. The mere want of a passage 
of the kind proves nothing. There may be other 
proof as conclusive as that of such a passage. The 



106 CHANGE OF THE DAY. 

first form of the appeal " to the law and to the testi- 
mony " is not, therefore, vital to the argument. 

The third form of it, though satisfactory, has less 
force than the second, and is so obvious that it does 
not need expansion. It is simply this — the first day 
of the week has been observed as Sabbath from the 
apostolic age. This is proved by authentic history. 
There is no evidence any where that its observance 
in the ages immediately succeeding the apostolic, was 
an innovation on apostolic and primitive custom. 
The necessary conclusion is, that it was so observed 
by the apostles and first disciples themselves. But 
they were so scrupulous of the commands of their 
Lord, that they would never have set up such obser- 
vance of the day, except on his permission or by his 
authority. Dismissing the first and third forms of the 
appeal, then, here, we rest the argument on the second. 



CHAPTER XI, 

CHRIST'S SANCTION OF THE SABBATH AND ITS 
CHANGE. 

Under the second form of the appeal " to the law 
and to the testimony," the first witness that we pro- 
pose to examine is the Lord Jesus Christ. What is 
the evidence of the law ^nd the testimony in his 
case? 

1. Christ had and claimed the right to regulate 
generally the observance of the Sabbath. This we 
have already seen. " The Son of man is Lord even 
of the Sabbath-day." But this right of regulation 
generally was of course a right to change the day, if 
he saw^ fit. Here, then, we have " the law." Christ's 
example, or actual conduct, will give us his "testi- 
mony." I remark, then, 

2. Christ's example, as Lord of the Sabbath, is 
proof that it was no part of his design to abolish the 
Sabbath, but to restore it to its original and true in- 
tent, and to change the day of its observance, so as to 
make it commemorative of his work of redemption. 
What was that example ? Answer — Before his death 
and resurrection, i. e. up to the period of the full intro- 
duction of the gospel dispensation, he carefully ob- 
served the seventh day as the Sabbath. After that 
period, beginning with the resurrection itself, he 



108 THE SABBATH. 

specially honored the first day of the week, as the 
religious day for his disciples. 

(1.) That he so honored the seventh day is most 
manifest. Before the gospel dispensation was fully 
introduced, it became him (Matt. iii. 15) " to fulfil all 
righteousness " accordipg to the law of Moses. Hence 
he was circumcised, and submitted to other ceremo- 
nial observances which were then in force. Of course 
he would not fail to keep the seventh day as Sabbath, 
Hence various occasions are mentioned in the evan- 
gelists upon which he attended the regular worship 
of God in the synagogues on the Sabbath — thus dis- 
charging the chief duty of the day. Indeed, we learn, 
(Luke iv. 16 ; comp. also v. 31,) that " he came to Naza- 
reth, where he had been brought up, and, as Ms custom 
was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, 
and stood up for to read." This is decisive of his 
observance of the Sabbath ; and also of the fact, that 
it was not an occasional matter merely, but his regu- 
lar habit. And this continued, for aught that appears, 
to the day of his death. 

Moreover, when accused, as he frequently was, of 
violating the Sabbath, he never plead in vindication, 
that, as Lord of the Sabbath, he was about to set it 
aside, and make all days alike, and that therefore he 
might do the things alleged with impunity. Not a 
word of this. On the contrary, his plea always was, 
that, according to its original and true intent, the 
things done were not a violation of the day. He al- 
ways plead to his innocence of the charge, but never 
based that plea on the ground that, as Lord of the 
Sabbath, he was about to abrogate it. Nor, indeed, did 
he ever, in any connection, give a hint of such abro- 



Christ's SxInction. 109 

gation. But how could this be, if abrogation were 
his design? With the question fairly brought to the 
issue, as it repeatedly was by the charges of Sabbath- 
breaking preferred against him, how, if abrogation 
were his design, could he fail to meet it by saying so ? 
Was he wont to cover up designs and dodge ques- 
tions thus? 

Objection, But, if the Savior, it is urged, was thus 
observant of the Sabbath, and meant to perpetuate it 
under the gospel dispensation, how happens it that 
he was so constantly in trouble with the Jews for 
breaking it, and that he never enjoined its observance 
upon them ? 

The Answer is obvious ; and will make it still more 
apparent, that the abrogation of the Sabbath was no 
part of Christ's design. Well (Matt. xv. 6—9) did 
Isaiah prophesy of the Jews at this period, '^ This 
people draweth nigh unto me v/ith their mouth, and 
honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far 
from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching 
for doctrines the commandments of men." Their 
whole religion had become one of mere external ob- 
servances. Hence they had lost sight of the real 
scope and spirit of almost every command of God, 
and, in multiplied instances, (v. 6,) had " made the com- 
mandment of God of none effect " by their " traditions " 
touching the manner of its observance. This was 
preeminently true in respect to the Sabbath. Thus, 
in respect to the prohibition of work on the Sabbath, 
the rabbinical doctors divided works into principal 
and secondary. Each principal work had its long 
list of secondary ones under it, the doing of any of 
which was a violation of the Sabbath. Thus, to 
10 



110 THE SABBATH. 

grind was a principal work. All dividing of things 
before united in their nature came under this head. 
The rubbing of the ears of corn was, of course, ac- 
cording to this tradition, a violation of the Sabbath, 
In this way the doctors enumerated some thirty-nine 
principal works, with their subordinates. The first 
eight of them were sowing, ploughing, reaping, 
binding, threshing, winnowing, cleaning, grinding.* 
Among the particular things which might or might 
not be done, were the following : A man might not 
thresh — therefore he might not walk on the grass, 
which was a kind of threshing. A man might not 
hunt on the Sabbath — therefore he might not catch 
a flea while it hops about, as that would be a kind of 
hunting. Again, he might not carry burdens on the 
Sabbath. Accordingly, though he might fill a trough 
with water that his beasts might come and drink, he 
might not cany it to the place where they were. Of 
course, the poor man that carried his bed, after he 
was healed, was a Sabbath-breaker. Equally unlaw- 
ful was it, according to some of the rabbins, to heal 
or minister to the sick on the Sabbath. A man with 
a diseased eye, might plaster it on the Sabbath, for 
the sake of ease and pleasure, but not for the purpose 
of healing.f And the decision of the school of 
Shammai was, " Let no one console the sick or visit 
the mourning on the Sabbath-day." J Of course, the 
Jews watched Jesus to see whether he would heal 
on the Sabbath, and charged him w^ith breaking it, 
when he did so. It is most obvious, then, that the 

* Townsend's Notes, vol. ii. p. 86. 
t Gurney, on the Sabbath; pp. 59, 60. 
t Townsend's Notes, vol. ii. p. 87. 



Christ's sanction. Ill 

Jews, at that time, had lost sight of the true spiritual 
and original intent of the Sabbath. It is equally 
clear, that just in proportion as they had done so, 
tiiey had become strict, scrupulous, and superstitious, 
in respect to its external observance. Indeed, to 
such lengths did they go in this strictness, that, 
(1 Mace. ii. 34 — 38,) when ilntiochus Epiphanes op- 
pressed Jerusalem, B. C. 168, a thousand Jews, who 
had fled to the wilderness, allowed themselves to be 
cut to pieces ; solely because their enemy attacked 
them on the Sabbath. And afterwards, though self- 
defence in case of actual assault was allowed, it was 
not deemed lawful to do any thing on that day to 
impede an enemy's works. Hence, when Pompey, the 
Roman general, at a later period, besieged Jerusalem, 
he occupied the Sabbath in erecting his works for 
assault, and, when they were completed, very readily 
took the city.* Indeed, even the devout women, that 
followed Christ to the cross, and thence to the sep- 
ulchre, (Luke xxiii. 56,) "returned, and prepared 
spices and ointments, and rested the Sabbath-day, 
according to the commandment" Nor was it until 
(Luke xxiv. 1 — 3) the first day of the week had 
dawned, that they presumed to revisit " the sepul- 

* Josephus (Antiq. b. 14, c. 4, sec. 2, 3) says, ^^ Though our 
laws give us leave, then, (on the Sabbath,) to defend ourselves 
against those that begin to fight with us, and assault us, yet they 
do not permit us to meddle v.'ith our enemies while they do any 
thing else. Which thing, when the Romans understood, on those 
days which we call Sabbaths, they threw nothing at the Jews, 
nor came to any pitched battle with them, but raised up their 
earthen banks, and brought their engines into such forwardness 
that they might do execution the following davs.*' 



112 THE SABBATK. 

chre, bringing the spices which they had prepared" 
for embalming their Lord. Nay, the very Jews who 
were ready to imbrue their hands in the blood of in- 
nocence, and had actually done it in effecting the 
crucifixion of Christ, were yet so scrupulous in their 
observance of the Sabbath, that they would not on 
any account take the dead bodies of himself and the 
thieves down from the cross on that day. Hence 
they besought Pilate (John xix, 31) to hasten and 
insure their death by breaking their legs, so that they 
might be taken away before it. 

These facts furnish a complete and satisfactory 
answer to the objection before us. Christ did not 
reenjoin it upon the Jew to keep the Sabbath. 
Why ? Because no such injunction vfas needed. 
The time had not come to enjoin the keeping of the 
first day as Sabbath, on any one. And as to keeping 
the seventh^ a people who would not kill a fiea, or 
walk on the grass, or minister to the sick, or who 
v^ould stand still and be hewed to pieces, sooner than 
violate the day, surely did not need to be told anew 
that they ought to keep it. Nor did they need any 
injunctions to keep it with special strictness. On 
these points they were already over-scrupulous, and 
needed no new instructions. Of course Christ gave 
them none. 

But they did need to be recalled to the true nature 
and original intent of the Sabbath. The Sabbath 
was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. But 
by their traditions concerning the mode of its ob- 
servance they had reversed the whole order and de- 
sign of it. They had lost sight of its true nature and 
original design, and had practically buried up the 



c^hrist's sanction. 113 

real Sabbath beneath a Sabbath of mere external ob- 
servances. In many ways, they had actually made 
the command of God — the real Sabbath — of none 
effect through their traditions. What, then, should 
be done ? If the Sabbath was to be abrogated, the 
thing to be done was to assail it and its corruptions 
in the lump, as a thing of nought, and soon to be 
done away — the sooner the better. Did Christ do 
that ? No. But if it were not to be abrogated, but 
perpetuated, then the thing to be done was, to sep- 
arate it from its perversions, that, being so separated, 
tlie institution might live while its pemiersions were 
dead. But this could be done only by flying in the 
face of those traditions that gave birth to the perver- 
sions. And this is just what the Savior did. Had 
they, by their traditions, so perverted the law of the 
Sabbath as to make works of real necessity and 
mercy a violation of the day? Like himsejf, he 
boldly denies the authority of such traditions, and 
tramples on every custom growing out of them. 
Must no burdens be carried, even in a case of neces- 
sity or mercy, as in ministering to the sick, or bring- 
ing them to be healed ? He heals the poor man, at 
the pool of Bethesda, (John v. 5 — 17,) and bids him 
take his bed and walk. And when they complain, 
and charge him with a violation of the Sabbath in 
doing so, his short, impressive, and authoritative 
answer is, "'My Father worketh ' such works 'hith- 
erto, and I work' the same. If he does works of 
such a character, why should not I?" — Again, must 
no cures be wrought or attempted on the Sabbath ? 
In repeated instances, he tramples the tradition under 
foot. He heals the man (Matt. xU. 10—13) with the 
10^ 



114 THE SABBATH. 

withered hand, and forestalls their clamor, by show- 
ing his enemies, that on their own premises, "it is 
lawtlil to do well on the Sabbath-days." He heals 
the wOiDan (Luke xiii. 10 — 17) " which had a spirit 
of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, 
and could in no wise lift up herself" And when the 
ruler of the synagogue complains, and says to the 
people, " There are six days in which men ought to 
work ; in them, therefore, come and be healed, and 
not on the Sabbath-day," Christ's bold and indignant 
reply, is, " Thou hypocrite I doth not each one of you 
loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him 
away to watering ? And ought not this ^voman, 
beiiig a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath 
bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this 
bond on the Sabbath-day?" — And again, must 
pressing hunger go unsupplied, rather than meet 
its demands by the simple process of rubbing out a 
few ears of grain, as the disciples pass along? lie 
justifies them in the deed, and tells their accusers, 
(Matt. xii. 7,) that if they I . d known what this mean- 
eth, "I will have mercy, anti rot sacrifice," the}^ vv^ould 
never have been so ignorant of the true intent of the 
Sabi)ath, and such sticklers for the outward forms of 
its observance as to have condemned the guiltless — ■ 
that " the Sabbath (Mark ii. 27) was made for man, 
and not," as their traditions would make it, "man for 
the Sabbath." 

By this process the Savior effectually separated the 
Sahhathfromits perversions^ True, it brought him — and 
no wonder that it did — into continual trouble with the 
scribes and Pharisees as a Sabbath-breaker. This is 
just what we should expect, jkit amid all their col- 



Christ's sanction. 115 

jisions with him on the subject, they never once pre- 
tended that he held all days alike, nor that he designed 
or wished to do the Sabbath away. But would they 
not have done it, had such been the fact ? Yet they 
did not. The wiiole controversy was, not whether 
the Sabbath was, or was to be, but, assuming this, 
what constitutes a violation of it — how is it to be 
kept ? The truth is, the whole effort of the Savior 
vv'as to separate the Sabbath, as such, from its perver- 
sions, not to abolish it, or to make all days alike. But 
why such separalioH, except that the institution might 
live vvinle its perversions were dead ? It was to rescue 
the Sabbath from the perversions of prevalent tradi- 
tions, and give it back to the people in its true nature 
and original design. Why ? Plainly that it might 
live and go dovvu, like marriage, as a permanent in- 
stitution, to the eud of time. Indeed, the work which 
the Savior did for the Sabbath vv^as precisely that 
which he did (Matt. v. and elsewhere) for the mar- 
riage institution, with its conjugal and filial relations, 
and the laws of their observance, and for other laws 
of acknowledged authority and perpetuity under the 
gos]:;eL It was a work, too, ivJiick he never did for cir- 
cumcision or for any other institution or ordinance, 
purely Jewish, and not designed to continue under the 
gospel dispensation. When he rescued the marriage 
institution, and the law of life, from the perversions of 
Jewish tradition, did he mean to hand them, so res- 
cued, down to us, as of permanent existence and per- 
petual obligation ? — as part and parcel of the gospel 
itsell ? Wliat less than this could he mean, when, at 
the risk of lifj as a Sabbath-breaker, he so rescued 
the Sabbath ? Lidecd, what was such a rescue of it 



116 THE CHANGE. 

but an emphatic injunction to observe it, as rescued ? 
While this view, then, solves the objection, hovr obvi- 
ous does it make it, that it was no part of Christ's de- 
sign to abrogate the Sabbath, but rather his design to 
perpetuate it! 

But, (2,) having thus rescued the Sabbath, as an 
institution, from its perversions, and having honored 
the seventh as Sabbath-day up to the time of his death, 
is there any evidence that, after his resurrection, 
and the consequent full introduction of the new dis- 
pensation, Christ put similar honor on the first day of 
the week ? Luke informs us, (Acts i. 3,) that after 
his passion he appeared to his disciples, at different 
times, for the space of forty days, and spake to them 
'-the things pertaining to the kingdom.''^ At some of 
these interviews, among the things pertaining to the 
kingdom, Christ either authorized a change of the 
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, 
or he did not. If he did not, the reason was, (John 
xvi. 12, 13,) " I have yet many things to say unto you, 
but ye cannot bear them now ; howbeit when he the 
Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all 
truth." The business of prescribing the arrange- 
ments for the future order and v/orship of the church, 
he had already devolved, as we shall see, upon his 
apostles, as a matter to be specially attended to by 
them, when, after his departure, the Comforter should 
come, who was to guide them into all truth, and en- 
due them with power from on high. If, therefore, 
Christ did not himself make the change in question, 
during this period of forty days, it was because this 
was one of the things which belonged, by his express 
authority, to the apostles to do. And in this case we 



Christ's sanction. 117 

are to look, for the first decisive indications of the 
change, to them and their histoiy, rather than to the 
conduct and history of Christ himself. 

The same is true, if, in the interviews in question, 
Christ did personally authorize the change. For the 
great object of those interviews plainly was, to make 
his discipies more fully acquainted with his real 
character and dignity, to estabiisli beyond all question 
the fact of his actual resurrection, and to commission 
;ii]d invest them with authority for their future work. 
Hence, on his w^ay to Emmaus, (Luke xxiv. 27,) " be- 
ginning at Mosas and all the prophets, he expounded 
unto them, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning 
himself" Hence, in the record of the several inter- 
view s, w^e hear almost nothing in detail of what '-the 
things," of which he spake, " pertaining to the king- 
dom," were. We have the simple commission to go 
into ail the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature, with its accorapan} ing authority. We have, 
then, a full and minute account of those occurrences 
and remarks which put the fact of his resurrection and 
personal identity beyond dispute. And further than 
this, we have almost no account of what passed at 
the inteniew^s in question. The great object of the 
record, w^hatever may have been that of the inter- 
views, was to make clear the fact of the resurrection. 
This was the great question, — that, indeed, on wdiich 
hinged every otiier. To settle this was of course the 
great object. If. then, in these interviews, Christ did 
personally authorize the change in question, we are 
not to expect, in a record so brief, and made for such 
a purpose, a formal and full-length mention of it, but 



118 THE CHANGE. 

only a mention of such occurrences and facts as are 
ill keeping with and not contradictory of it. Such a 
mention we have. 

Previous to his death, as we have seen, Christ was 
in the regular and habitual observance of the seventh, 
as Sabbath-day. Afterward, when, by his death and 
resurrection, the old dispensation was fully at an end, 
and the new one fully introduced, we never find him 
in the synagogue or meeting with his disciples for 
religious purposes on that daj\ But he did meet 
with them for such purposes on the first day of the 
week, and in other ways he specially honored that 
day. He rose from the dead on that day. Four 
times, on the same day, he manifested himself to his 
disciples ; first (Matt, xxviii. 9) to the women who 
held him by the feet and worshipped ; then (Luke 
xxiv. 34) to Peter; then (Luke xxiv. 18 — 33) to the 
two disciples on their way to Emmaus, when he ex- 
pounded to them "the things concerning himself," 
and was made known to them in the breaking of 
bread ; and, lastly, (John xx. 19 — 23,) to the ten apostles, 
when, after showing them his hands and side, and so 
verifying his resurrection, he said, "As my Father 
hath sent me, even so send I you," and, breathing on 
them, added, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose 
soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; 
and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." 
In these two interviews, Christ gave the disciples, 
first, an exposition of the Scriptures concerning him- 
self; next the evidence of his resurrection ; then the 
commission, "as my Father hath sent me, even so 
send 1 you ; " and then the investment of them with 



Christ's sanction. 119 

authority to iDstruct, and to regulate the order, insti- 
tutions, and worship of the church under the new dis- 
pensation. Now, on the supposition that this was 
the first of Christian Sabbaths, and that subse- 
quently this day of the week w^as to be the Sabbath- 
day of the church, what could be more appropriate 
to the occasion than such instruction, such a com- 
mission, and such an investment of authority from 
him who was at the same time Head of the church 
and Lord of the Sabbath? Considered as one whole, 
what were all these various items but the full and 
formal introduction of the gospel kingdom ? Before, 
by John the Baptist and others, it had been an- 
nounced as being " at hand.^^ Now, in the resurrection 
of its Lord, in his manifestation of himself to his dis- 
ciples, in his commission of them to act for him, and 
in his investment of them with the authority named, 
It had fully come, and loas officially introduced. It 
was done, too, on the first day of the week. How 
fitting to have it done then, if that day was thereafter 
to be the Sabbath of the church ! 

Again, if this were the first of Christian Sabbaths, 
the second w^ould occur on the next first day of the 
week ; and on that day, therefore, we should naturally 
expect to find Christ and the disciples together again. 
Such seems to have been the fact. When one event 
happened a week after another, the Jews sometimes 
called the whole period ''an eight days ^^ — including 
in their reckoning both the days on which the events 
in question occurred. Accordingly, when we read, 
(John XX. 26,) "And ajier eight days, again his disci- 
ples were within,'' &c., there can be little doubt that 



120 THE CHANGE. 

it was on the next first day.^ Mr. Gurney thinks that 
the ascension was on the first day of the week.f And 
it is quite certain that the descent of the Comforter 
was upon that day. 

The disciples were commanded by their Lord to 
tarry at Jerusalem until they were "endued with 
power from on high," being assured, at the same time, 
that this should be " not many days hence." Then 
followed the ascension ; then, in the exercise of the 
authority conferred upon them, the appointment of 
Matthias to the apostleship in the place of Judas ; and 
then the waiting for the promised Comforter. This 
Comforter was to be to them in the place of Christ. 
He was to guide them into all truth. He was to 

* Hammond, Gill, Grotius, &c., in loc. 3 and compare Luke 
Tx. 28 with Matt. xvii. 1, and Mark ix. 2. 

t Mr. Gurney says, pp. 78, 79, " The period which elapsed be- 
tween our Lord's resurrection and ascension, is described ?is forty 
days. Acts i. 3. This is a period of which frequent mention is made 
in the sacred history. The flood was forty days upon the earth 5 
Moses was forty days in the mount 3 Elijah went forty days in 
the strength of the meat which the angel provided for him 3 Christ 
fasted forty days in the wilderness. Now, as the Hebrews were 
accustomed to reckon their time by weeks, — from Sabbath to 
Sabbath, — it seems very probable that the term foj^ty days de- 
notes a round number, and is in fact a mere synonyme for six 
Sabbaths or weeks. If so, the ascension took place six weeks 
after the resurrection, and therefore on the first day of the week. 
This conclusion is in some measure confirmed by the very fact 
that the disciples were then assembled 3 for not only do we find 
them meeting- together on the first day of the week, twice before 
this event, but we shall presently see that they maintained the 
same practice on the very week folio wing. ^^ 



Christ's sanction. 121 

qualify them for the work to v/hich Christ had com- 
missioned them. He v/as to direct them hi the ex- 
ercise of their autiiority, to instruct and to regulate 
the order, institutions, and worship of the chuj-ch. 
He was to be, in all these respects, the same to them 
as a present Christ. So that under his guidance their 
mstructions wouhl be as correct, and the order, io- 
stituiions, and w^orship, they should prescribe for the 
church, as wise and authoritative as if they were 
under the immediate personal guidance of Christ 
liimself. " And when the day of Pentecost vvas fully 
come, they were ail with one accord in one place. 
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues Uke 
as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they 
vvere aJl filled with the Holy Ghost^ and began to 
speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them 
utterance," This descent of the Holy Ghost on 
them, like his descent on Christ at his baptism, was 
their public anointing to the work which Christ be- 
gan, and which he had now devolved on them to 
carry out and complete. It was, like his, their ofS- 
cial recognition and introduction to it. It was also 
the formal and public commitment of the work to 
tJiem, and tlie pledge that the}' would do their part 
of it, as Christ had his, according to the mind and will 
of God. And all this transpired on the first day of 
the week — "the Lord's day." Chi'ist's last paschal 
supper Vv'as on the evening of the fifth day of the 
week. That fifth day was the i4th of the month 
Nisan, on which the pass over Vv^as slain. Christ was 
crucified on the sixth day. The seventh day was of 
course the second of the feast, and w^as the day on 
11 



122 THE CHANGE. 

which the wave-sheaf was offered to the Lord. 
Pentecost (Lev. xxiii. 15, 16) was fifty days after 
this. And as this was on the seventh day, the forty- 
ninth day from that was the seventh Sabbath, and 
the next, or fiftieth day, was of course the first day 
of the week. The immediate result of this anointing 
was, that the apostles, especially Peter, preached with 
such power, that about three thousand souls were 
added to the church on that single day. It was em- 
phatically the beginning of days to the infant church. 
yVnd thus was the first day of the week again hon- 
ored and blessed of him who was at once Head of 
the church, and Lord of the Sabbath. 

Here, then, to say nothing of the intermediate in- 
terviews, we have, in the first instance, the resurrec- 
tion, the ex})osition of the Scriptures conceraing 
himself, the evidence of the identity of his resurrec- 
tion body, the commission of the disciples, and their 
investment with apostolic authority ; and, in the 
second instance, that of Pentecost, the mission of 
the Comforter, with all of official recognition and 
endowment that it involved. And what are all these 
occurrences, but just what we should expect them to 
be, on the supposition that Christ meant to honor the 
first day of the week, as, by way of eminence, the 
day of religious worship under the new order of 
things.^ The events in question had more imme- 
diate and direct concern with the establishment and 
progress of the new religion, than any other. They 
were, in fact, its official, formal, and full introduction, 
in the first instance to the disciples, and in the second 
to the world. Why should they, in both cases, trans- 



Christ's sAx\xtion. 123 

pi re on the first day of the week, except it were that 
he, who, as Head of the church, was, in these events, 
official!}^ and fully instituting a new dispensation, was 
also, as Lord of the Sahbath, instituting a new day as 
Sabbath-day for his people — a day to be thencefor- 
ward observed by them, in distinction from other 
days, as "Lord's Day"? 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE SANCTION OF THE APOSTLES AND THE 
PRBiITIVE CHURCH. 

What is the evidence of the " law and the testi- 
mony" in the case of the apostles and primitive 
discl])les? First, what was "THE LAW"? 

Jlnswer. Christ gave his apostles express authority 
to regulate the faitJi, institutions, order, and worship of 
the church, and declared that ivhatever they might teach or 
prescribe in the case should be authoritative and binding. 
On a certain occasion, (Matt xvi. 13 — 19,) Christ in- 
quired of his disciples, "Whom do men say that I, the 
Son of man, am?" And when Peter said, in reply, 
" Tiiou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," he 
commended him, ^md declared, " Upon this rock I will 
build my chm'oh ; and the gates of hell shall not pre- 
vail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys 
of the kingdom of heaven ; and wluitsoever thou sliait 
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and what- 
soever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
lieaveii ." On another occasion, (Matt, xviii. 18,) when 
the discipline of the church was the topic of dis- 
course, Christ said to all the apostles, as he had be- 
fore said to Peter, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on 
earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye 
shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Both 



THE CHANGE. 1'25 

these occasions were previous to his death. After- 
ward, (John XX. 21, 22,) on the evening of the day of 
his resurrection, he commissioned them to the apos- 
tohc work, saying, "As my Father hath sent me, even 
so send I you.-' Then, investing them with apostoUc 
authority, "he breathed on them, and said. Receive 
3'e the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they 
are remitted unto them ; and whose soever sins ye 
retain, they are retained." 

What do these passages of Scripture teach? That 
they do not teach the Romish doctrine of the suprem- 
acy of St. Peter, is obvious ; because the same power 
or authority conferred on him in the first passage, is, 
in the others, conferred on all the apostles. Equally 
obvious is it that they did not confer the power of 
pardoning sin, in the proper sense of that phrase, 
because that is the prerogative of God only. How, 
then, are they to be understood ? A ready and satis- 
factory answer is found in the usage of the times and 
the circumstances of the case. 

The phrase "to bind and to loose " was used by the 
Jews in the sense of to prohibit and to permit, or to 
teach what is prohibited and what permitted. Thus 
they said of gathering wood on the Sabbath, " The 
school of Sharamai binds it" — i. e. prohibits it, or 
teaches that it is prohibited; and "the school of 
Hillel looses it" — i. e. permits it, or teaches that it is 
permitted. Lightfoot, in his Exercitations on Mat- 
thew, produces many instances of this use of the 
phrase. Sclioetgen, in his Hor. Heb. vol. i. p. 145, 6, 
adds many moje — all showing that, according to 
Jewish usage at the time, to loose and to bind sig- 
nified to pronounce authoritatively what was lawlul 
11* 



126 THE CHANGE. 

and unlawful, clean and unclean, condemned and 
allowed, according to Mosaic law. The phrase was 
manifestly a professional phrase — a kind of theologi- 
cal technic, applied to the rabbis, or teachers whose 

business it was to expound the law, and well under- 
stood as meaning, not only that they taught what v/as 
prohibited and what allowed by the law, but that 
their teaching was authoritative, and therefore bind- 
ing on the people. Hence the declaration of the Sa- 
vior, (Matt, xxiii. 2 — 4,) " The scribes and the Pharisees 
sit in Moses' seat;" — officially they teach by au- 
tbority ; — " all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you 
observe and do, that observe and do ; but do not 
after their works ; for they say, and do not. For," 
so rigid are they in their exposition and enforcement 
of the law on others, that " they hind heavy burdens, 
and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's 
shoulders," while, at the same time, they themselves 
are so lax in its observance, that "they will not move 
them w^ith one of their fingers." Here, then, v/e have 
this very power of binding, recognized by the Savior 
as residing, in the sense explained, in the scribes 
and Pharisees ; and residing there, not because they 
exercised it properly, but because they wxre the oc- 
cupiers of Moses' seat, and, therefore, officially, the 
auiliojized and authoritative expounders of the law. 
Of course, v/hile Moses remained in force, it was 
their official duty and prerogative, under him, to bind 
and to loose — L e. (for such is the meaning) to teach 
authoritatively what ivas prohibited and ivhat alloiced by 
Mosaic law. 

But the time was at hand, and in the last case had 
actually arrived, when Moses wjs to give place to 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY. 127' 

Christ, and those whose ofHcial business it was to 
l)ind and loose under the old dispensation were to be 
succeeded by those whose official business it should 
be to bind and to loose under the new. The first 
passage, then, under consideration, which, with the 
second, was uttered in anticipation of this change, is 
as if the Savior had said, "I am the Christ, the Son 
of the living God," as you, Peter, have confessed. 
"Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona ; for flesh and 
blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father 
which is in heaven." And now, as 1x121 Father liath 
thus honored you in giving you a full apprehension 
of mj character and kingdom before your fellow- 
disciples, I also will honor you in the same maimer. 
'^Thou art rock; and upon this rock will I build my 
churcli. And I will give unto thee the keys of it" 
It shall be your high honor to be first in laying its 
foundations, and in opening the doors of it to the 
world. As you have been the first to apprehend and 
confess to me the great truth just announced, you 
shall be the first to proclaim it, in all its fulness, to 
the Jews, (as he did on Pentecost,) and to the Gen- 
tiles, (as he did at Cornelius' house ;) and so the first 
to make known the gospel and lay the f')undations of 
rny church on earth. And when this is done, in 
common with your fellow-disciples, you shall have 
the same official power of binding and loosing under 
the new dispensation which those who sit in Moses' 
seat have had under the old. It shall be yours, under 
my guidance and that of the Comforter, to teach what 
is lawful and what unlawful in n^y church. And 
whatsoever j'ou so "bind on earth shall be bound in 
heaven ; and whatsoever you " (so) " loose on earth 



12^ 



THE CHANGE. 



shall be loosed in heaven." Your teaching shall 
be authoritative and binding. 

The second passage gives the same authority to all 
the apostles, in respect to the subject of discipline in 
the church. And the last passage is as if the Sa- 
vior had said — Now my work is done. I have 
tasted death for all. Redemption is complete, and 
the way open for the visible and official introduction 
of my church to the world. The " corner stone " is 
laid. It only remains more fully to instruct my fol- 
lowers and the world in respect to the nature and 
design of my kingdom, and the conditions of salva- 
tion, and more specifically to prescribe the order, 
institutions, discipline, and worship of my church. 
This work I now commit to 3^ou. "As my Father 
licith sent me, even so send I you." This is your 
commission. And as the evidence of your authority 
and thy pledge of your being under the infallible 
guidance of God in what you teach and prescribe, 
"Receive ye the Holy Ghost." When he is come, 
(John xvi. 14,) "He shall receive of mine, and shall 
show it unto you." He will also (John xiv. 26) 
"teach you all things, and bring all things to your 
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." 
He will even (John xvi. 13) "show you things to 
come." Under his infallible guidance, then, go for- 
ward to the work J have assigned you. Order all the 
alikirs of the church. Prescribe her order, institu- 
tions, worship. Declare to all on what terms, to 
what characters and temper of mind, God will extend 
the forgiveness of sin. Establish thus, in all the 
churches, the conditions on which men may be par- 
doned. In extraordinary cases, pronounce the judg- 



AiO;^TOLlC AUTHORITY. 129 

ment of God on presuiiiptiious aud gross offenders. 
And "wlios3 soever sins ye" so "remit, they are re- 
mitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye"' so "re- 
tain, they are retained.'^ What you do shall be in 
my name and by my authority. 

And that this was the kind of povver or authority 
conferred by Christ, in these passages, on the apos- 
tles, is proved by the fact that it is the very povver or 
authority which they actually exercised. (1.) They 
gave full and explicit instruction in respect to the 
nature and design of the gospel kingdom, the truths 
of Chi'istianity. and the terms of salvation ; and 
claimed to do it by authority. Hence the fearful 
malediction of Paul, (Gal. i. 8, 12,) " Though we, or 
an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto 
you than that which we have preached unto you, let 
him be accursed.'' And the reason assigned for it 
was, "For I neither received it of man, neither was 
I taught it of man, but by the revelation of Jesus 
Christ;" i. e. I taught it by authoI•it3^ (2.) With 
equal authority they pronounced the judgments of 
God, in extraordinary cases, on bold and presumptu- 
ous transgressoivS. Ananias and Sapphira were smit- 
ten dead, Hymeneus and Alexander, for their heresy, 
(2 Tin::, ii. 18,) were "deiivered" (1 Tim. i. 20) "unto 
Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme." See 
also the rebuke oi' Simon Magus, (Acts vlii. 18-^—24,) 
and the judgment of the incestuous person. (1 Cor. v. 
3 — 5.) Finally, (3,) they ordered all the affairs of the 
church in the same manner. In respect to its officers^ 
they directed the choice (Acts vi. 3) of deacons, and 
appointed them to their office. Wherever the}^ went, 
(Acts xiv. 23,) the^/ "ordained them elders in every 



130 THE CHANGE. 

church." See also Titus i. 5, and ii. 15. They di- 
rected also the discipline of the church, as in the case 
of the incestuous person, (1 Cor. v. 13,) "Put away 
from among yourselves that wicked person." They 
gave order in respect to her charities, (1 Cor. xvi. 1,) 
" Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as 1 
have given ordei^ to the churches of Galatia, even so 
do ye." They corrected abuses, and prescribed the 
proper mode (1 Cor. xi. 20 — 30) of observing the 
Lord's supper, and (1 Cor. xi. 1—20, and xiv. 23 — 40) 
of conducting the meetings of the church; and said 
Paul, in reference to these regulations, (v. 37,) "If any 
man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let 
him acknowledge that the things that I write unto 
you are the commandments of the LordJ'^ They pre- 
scribed in like manner the rites and ceremonies, or 
observances, of the church. In council assembled, 
they (Acts xv. 24, 29) assured the Gentile converts 
that they need not be circumcised, and keep the 
ritual law, but only that they abstain from meats 
offered to idols, and from blood, &c. In a word, they 
regulated, throughout, the faith, the institutions, the 
order, the worship of the church. And their uniform 
language, in all of their instructions and regulations, 
was that of command and authority. "So ordain I," 
says Paul, (1 Cor. vii. 17,) " in all the churches." i\nd, 
(2 Thess. ii. 15, and iii. 6,) " Therefore, brethren, stand 
fast, and hold the traditions v/hich ye have been 
taught, whether by word or our epistle," and " we 
command you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that 
walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which 
ye received of us." And says Peter, (2 Pet. iii. 1, 2,) 



PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 131 

«I write unto you that ye may be mindful of the 
commandment of us, the apostles of tlie Lord and Sa- 
vior." It is settled, then, beyojid dispute, that the 
power to bind and to loose, conferred on the apostles 
by CJirist, was the power to teach and to order au- 
thoritaiively in ail the affairs of the church. Here we 
have "the law^ 

The question now is, What is " the TESTIMONY " ? 
Did the apostles, in the exercise ofthispower,auihorize 
a change of the Sabbath from the seventh to tiie first day 
of the week? If tliey did, the change is as authorita- 
tive and binding as if made by Christ himself Whether 
they did or not is a question of fact, which must l)e 
determined by an appeal to "the testimony." Tiie 
testimony is of course of two kinds — that of the 
Scripture record, and that of authentic ecclesiastical 
history. Our first inquu'y is. What is the testimony, 
according to the Scripture record ? 

1. The apostles and early disciples were in the 
habit of meeting together, at stated TmBS,fo7' public 
religious worship. This none will deny — " Not forsak- 
ing the assembling of yourselves together, as the man- 
ner of some is." See also 1 Cor. xiv. 23, where Paul 
speaks of " the ivhole church as coming together into 
one place.''^ It is equally obvious, that the exercises of 
these meetings were prayer and the various kinds of 
religious instruction, (see 1 Cor. xi. 1 — 16, and xiv. 
23 — 40;) exhortation, (see Rom. xii. 8; 1 Thess. v. 11 ; 
Titus ii. 15;) singing, (see Col. iii, 16; Ephes. v. 19;) 
the observance of the Lord's supper, (1 Cor. xi. 
20 — 34,) and such other things as were appropriately 
a part of public religious worship. Some of these 
meetings were occupied chiefly with prayer, praise. 



132 THE CH/^NGE. 

exhortation, and instruction. At others the special 
object of the meeting was the observance of the 
Lord's supper — ^"the breal\ing of bread," as it was 
sometimes termed. And when the object was the ob- 
servance of the supper, the meetings Vv^ere as truly the 
pubhc religious meetings of the church as were any 
others. The breaking of bread on the occasion was 
not the usual expression of Christian hospitality and 
kindness. Nor was it done at their private houses, 
but in the usual place of public worship — "What, 
(1 Cor. xi, 22, 34,) have ye not" (private) "houses 
to eat and to drink " (your ordinary meals) " in ? If any 
man hunger, let him eat at home," (and not turn the 
Lord's supper into a common meal or a season of 
riot,) "that ye come not together" (in your place of 
public worship, to eat the Lord's supper) " unto con- 
demnation." The observance of the ordinance was 
moreover accompanied with thanksgiving, prayer, re- 
ligious instruction, and singing. Thus, at its iu'st in- 
stitution, when Christ sat down to the passover with 
his disciples, (Luke xxii. 16—18.) he declared that he 
would not eat of that again until it was fulfilled in the 
kingdom of God. He then took the passover cup, and 
"gave thanks," &c., adding that he would not drink of 
that again until the kingdom of God had come. He then 
gave tiiem instruction on various topics — especially 
his death, and the full introduction of his kingdom. 
He informed them, (John xiii. 31, 32,) that the hour 
was at hand when the "Son of man" should be 
" glorified," and, in anticipation of that hour, he said, 
(Luke xxii. 29, 30,) "I appoint unto you a kingdom, 
as my Father hath appointed unto me, that ye may 



PRIMITIVE WO:i iliP. 18^.. 

eat and di'ink at my table in my kingdom." And 
then, instituting his table, as that which was to s>iper- 
sede the passover, he (Mark xiv. 22, 23) " took bread 
and blessed it," and afterwards ''took the cup and 
gave thanks." Then followed other instructions, 
(John xiv. 1—30,) after which (Matt. xxvi. 30)"tJiey 
sung a hymn," and then " went out into the mount of 
Olives." *= In like manner, the first disciples (Acts 
ii. 42) continued steadfastly in communion together, 
" and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.^"^ And sub- 
sequently, (x\cts XX. 7,) "when they came together to 
break bread, Paul preached unto them." From ail 
which it is obvious that the meetings for the obser- 
vance of the supper were as truly meetings of the 
church for public worship as were any other. And 
that these meetings were held regularly every first day 
of the week, is proved by the whole current of eccle- 
siastical history.f The observance of Lord's sup- 
per was as regular as the return of Lord's day, and 
was so far a regular observance of the day itself, as a 
day for public religious worship. 

But these, as well as the other religious meetings 
of the church, it is said, were also held on other days 
of the week, as occasion might offer or convenience 
allow. Be it so ; and what then ? The same is true 
now. But such occasional or stated meetings now are 
no evidence that the first day of the week is not also ob- 

* For this order of events, see Townsend's Arrangement, part 
6, sects. 30 — 36. Consult, also, any other Harmony of the 
Gospels. 

t See the testimony of Pliny^ Justin Martyr^ and Eusebius, 
pp. 140, 141, 159, 161. 
12 



134 THE CHANGE. 

served, in distinction from other days, as the Sabbath. 
The stated Tuesday and Friday evening meetings, 
and the various other occasional meetings, of the 
churches in this city, during the week, do not prove 
that there is no day specially observed as Sabbath 
here. No more does the record of such meetings of 
the primitive churches prove the non-obsei'vance of 
the same Sabbath by them, in Eastern cities and 
in apostolic times. Admit, then, that the primitive 
churches had their stated and their occasional meet- 
ings during the week, just as the churches now do; 
it may yet appear that they also had the first day of 
the week set apart, as Sabbath, for their more gen- 
eral and regular meetings ; and that this, in distinc- 
tion from other days, and by divine authority, was 
their special and distinctive religious day — as truly 
special as was the Sabbath of old, and as really dis- 
tinctive, in its observance, of the followers of Christ, 
as was that of the worshippers of Jehovah. 

2. That it was so, is evident from the title then given 
to it, viz. " The Lord's day." John (Rev. i. 10) says, 
"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.^^ That this 
was the first day of the w^eek, or the day of Christ's 
resurrection, is proved by authentic history. Ig- 
natius, in his Epistle to the Magnesians, about A. D. 
101, calls the first day of the week, the Lords day, 
the day consecrated to the resurrection, the queen 
and prince of all days ; and says, " Let every friend 
of Christ celebrate the Lords day.'' Clement of 
Alexandria, about A. D. 192, says, (Strom. VII. p. 
744,) " A Christian, according to the command of the 
gospel, observes the Lords day, thereby glorifying 



lord's day. 135^ 

the resurrection of the Lord." And again, (Strom. 
V. p. 600,) " The Lord's day is the eighth day." Tlie- 
odoret, (Haeret. Fab. 11. 1,) sjjeaking of the Ebionites, a 
party of Judaizing Christians, says, "They keep the 
Sahhath " (seventh day) " according to the Jewish law, 
and sanctify the Lord^s day " (iirst day) " in Uke manner 
as we do." Barnabas^ who, if not a companion of 
the apostles, lived in the apostohc age, in his Cath- 
olic Epistle, says, " We " (Christians) '• keep the eighth 
day" (i. e. the first day of the week) " as a joyful holy 
day, on which also Jesus rose from the dead." Q/p- 
rian^ A. D. 253, in a letter to Fidus, says, that tlie 
Lord's day is the next day after the Sahhath. Clun/s- 
ostorn (Com. on Ps. cxix.) says, "It was called the 
Liord's day, because the Lord arose from the dead 
on this day." Other passages of a similar character 
will be quoted, in another connection, hereafter. 
These are sufficient to show, now, that when John 
said he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, he spoke 
of the first day of the w^eek, and that this day was 
at that time known, observed, and distinguished, in 
the church, from otlier days, by the name of " the 
Lord's day»^ 

But w^hy this designation ? and what is its import ? 
The occasion of it was, obviously, the resurrection of 
the Lord upon that day. And so far, its import was a 
memorial of tliat event. But if that were all, as the 
day of his ascension w^as afterwards known in the 
chmxh as " Ascension day," why should not that of 
his resurrection be also known as "Resurrection 
day"? Why should one of them be called " Lord's 
day " rather than the other ? Or, if the whole import 
of the title was to designate a day commemorative 



:mj 



THE CHANGE. 



merely of the event, why sliouid either of them be so 
called? Surely "Ascension day " and "Resurrection 
day " were a more appropriate designation. So called, 
the title alone would indicate the event commem- 
orated by the respective day. But call either of them 
" Lord's day," and the title, merely, gives you no clew 
to the event. In this case, the title points you only to 
the person, not to the event. And whether the event 
commemorated be his birth, temptation, crucifixion, 
resurrection, or ascension, or neither, j^ou have to 
learn from other sources, not from the title. There 
must have been some further import, then, in this 
designation of the day. What was it? 

To call this, rather than the other days of the week, 
"Lord's day," was saying, of course, that it was, in 
some peculiar sense, so distinguished from them, as to 
make it Ms day, by way of eminence, and in distinc- 
tion from all other days. But why this distinction 
in name, indicative of a corresponding distinction in 
facf? What was the ground of it? Are not all days 
the Lord's? Do we not receive them all from him? 
Are we not bound to serve and honor him in them 
all? and, in this sense, to keep all days holy ? Why, 
then, this distinction ? Whence its origin ? What 
its nature ? The day was, in some sense above all 
other days, peculiarly the Lord's. How could it be 
so any more than Ascension day, or any other day of 
the week, except as it, in distinction from them, 
tvas set apart, by the Liord, or by his authority, to be ob- 
served in honor of him, in some peculiar and distinctive 
way'^ And, as they had some religious meetings on 
other days, in what distinctive way could they ob- 
serve this, except they observed it as their special and 



lord's day. Wf^ 

distinctive religious day — a day devoted, like the Sahbath 
of old, to the business of religious instruction, improve- 
ment, and worship, and, in its observance, designed to be 
a distinctive badge of discipleship ? Obviously, it was 
as a day thus specially and distinctively set apart to 
the worship and service of the Lord, that it was 
called "Lord's day." Such, at least, is the import ot 
its title, as demanded by the nature of the case. 

That such is the true import, is further obvious from 
Scripture usage in similar cases. " The sanctuary of 
the Lord," (IChron. xxii. 19,) and "the Lord's house," 
(Ps. cxvi. 19,) denote plainly a sanctuary, and a house 
specially set apart, in distinction from ordinary houses, 
to his service and honor. "Apostles of the Lord," or 
Lord's apostles, (2 Pet. iii. 2,) means, of course, men 
set apart, by the Lord, to his service and honor, as 
apostles. " Apostles of Christ," or Christ's apostles, 
(1 Thess. ii. 6,) means the same. "The Sabbath of 
the Lord," or the Lord's Sabbath, applied (Lev. xxiii. 
3) to the original seventh day Sabbath, plainly signi- 
fies a day appointed or set apart, by the Lord, for his 
service and honor. "Feasts of the Lord," and "Sab- 
baths of the Lord," (Lev. xxiii. 4, 38,) imply the same. 
So in the Nevv- Testament — "The cup of the Lord," 
or the Lord's cup, and " the Lord's table," (1 Cor. x. 21,) 
impl}^ that these, in distinction from ordinary cups 
and tables, and from those dedicated to devils, are set 
apart or consecrated to the service and honor of the 
Lord. 

But a still more decisive instance of this usage is 
furnished in the phrase ''the hordes supper.^^ (1 Cor. 
xi. 20.) Here we find a particular supper singled out 
and distinguished from all other suppers, as the Lord's. 



::J:^8 



THE CHANGE. 



Why? Not that one supper, any more than one 
cup or table, is intriiisicaiiy more holy than another ; 
not that one belongs to the l^ord any more than an- 
other ; not that we are not bound to serve and glorify 
God in one, as truly as another; for "Whether ye 
eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory 
of God," is the command ; nor was it that in these 
senses all suppers are not equally the Lord's ; for 
they are, and the apostle understood it so. V/hy, 
then, the application of the name to one, rather than 
another, and the consequent distinction of the one 
as, in some sense, peculiarly his ? The only answer 
is, what from other sources we know to be true, that 
this, in distinction from all others, was the supper set 
apart, or instituted, by the Lord, to be observed in re- 
membrance and honor of him, and therefore as a 
badge or sign of discipleship itself. Its appointment 
as a special religious ordinance was by him. Its ob- 
servance as such was, and was to be, in remembrance 
and honor of him, and was thus, of necessity, a dis- 
tinctive badge or sign of those that were his. Of 
course it was, above all others, peculiarly the Lord's, 
and, being so, received its designation accordingly. 
How, then, can we resist the conclusion, that the same 
was true of "the Lord's day"' ? We cannot. As the 
phrase " The Lord's supper " signified a supper set 
apart, in distinction from all others, by the Lord, to be 
observed as a special and distinctive religious ordi- 
nance, in remembrance and honor of him, so "the 
Lord's day" signified a day set apart in the same 
way, as the special and distinctive religious day of his 
people. Each, in its observance, was alike honorary 
of him as their Lord, and distinctive of them as his 



lord's day. ^^ 

people. Such, beyond all question, is the legitimate 
and true import of the phrase. In the very title of 
the day, then, we have the proof that the change 
of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of 
the week, was made by Christ hunself, or by his 
authority. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED. 

3. Further evidence of this change is found in the 
fact that the observance of the first day of the week, 
as their regular and distinctive rehgious day, was the 
general custom of the primitive churches, and that in this 
custom tliey had apostolic sanction. The evidence on 
this point is twofold — that of the Bible and that of 
ecclesiastical history. As the latter casts light on the 
former, it may be appropriately introduced first. 

The passages already quoted show the prevalence of 
the custom, and that it was peculiar to the Christiana 
Besides these, IrencBus, bishop of Lyons, A. D. 167, 
says, " On the Lord's day f^very one of us Christians 
keeps Sabbath, meditating on the law, and rejoicing 
in the works of God." Diouysius, bishop of Corinth, 
A. D. 170, (see Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. 4, c. 23,) wri- 
ting to the Romans, informs them that the Epistle of 
Clement, their late bishop, was read in the church at 
Corinth, while they were keeping the Lord's Pioly 
day. TeHullian, A. D. 192, (De Idolat. ch. 14,) sfiys, 
" We have nothing to do with the Sabbath," (the 
Jewish seventh day ;) "the Lord^s day is the Christianas 
solemnity." Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, 
A. D. 107, in his letter to the emperor Trajan, re- 
pecting the Christian martyrs, says that some who 



THE CHANGE. HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 14^ 

had been induced, by the sufferings to which they 
were subjected, to renounce their faith in Christ, gave 
this account of their former rehgion — " That they 
were accustomed, on a stated day, to meet betbre day- 
light, and to repeat among themselves a hymn to 
Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by an oath 
not to commit any wickedness, but, on the contrary, 
to abstain from thefts, robberies, and adulteries ; also 
not to violate their promise, or deny a pledge ; after 
wiiicli it was their custom to separate and meet again 
at a promiscuous and harmless meal." That the 
" stated day " spoken of was the first day of the week, 
is proved by the question which the Roman perse- 
cutors were wont to put to their victims, and by the 
answer whicii was, in substance, usually given to it. 
The question was, "Dominicum servasti?" i. e. 
"Hast thou kept the Lord's day?" The answer 
was, "Christianus sum; intermittere non possum;" 
i. e. " I am a Christian ; I cannot omit it," ^' Justin 
Martyr, in his Apology, (Apol. L chap. 67,) addressed 
to the emperor Antoninus, A. D. 147, gives a still 
more minute account of the Christian day of worship. 
He says, "On the day called" (by you Romans) "Sunday, 
there is a meeting in one place of all the Christians 
who live either in the towns or in the country, and 
the Memoirs of the Apostles," (supposed to be the four 
Gospels,) " or the writings of the prophets, are read to 
them as long as is suitable. When the reader stops, 
the president pronounces an admonition, and exhorts 
to the imitation of these noble examples ; after which 
we all arise and begin to pray." He then gives an 

* Acts of Martyrs^ in Bishop Andrews on the Ten Commajid- 
mentSj p, 264. 



142 THE CHANGE. 

account of the observance of the Lord's supper, and 
says also that at these meetings mone}^ was always 
collected for the benefit of the poor. 

These testimonies prepare us the better to ap- 
preciate the force of the Scripture testimony. That 
testimony is as follows : (1.) From Acts xx. 3 — 1 
we learn, that Paul and his companions, on leaving 
Greece to go up to Jerusalem, came to Troas, and 
"abode there sevm, days. And upon the first day of the 
week, when the disciples came together to break 
bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on 
the morrow." 

The phrase translated here, "And upon the first 
day of the week," is, in the original, 'Ei^ ds rfi ^la tcov 
aa66(j,T(x)v ; i. e. literally, "And upon the one of the 
Sabbaths." Some have ai'gued from this, that the 
time here spoken of was not the first day of the 
week, but only one of the Jewish Sabbaths. To this 
it is sufficient to say, that in other passages, where 
the first day of the week is unquestionably designated, 
the language of the original is the same. Thus in 
Luke xxiv. 1 — "Now upon the first day of the 
week, very early in the morning, they came unto the 
sepulchre," &c. This, being the day of Christ's resur- 
rection, was clearly the first day of the week. Yet 
the language of the original is, Tf^ dk ^ua rcby aa66(x- 
Twv ; literally, " Upon the one of the Sabbaths." hx 
John XX. 1, it is the same. So also in Matt, xxviii. 1, 
and Mark xvi. 2. This settles the point that the time 
in the present case was the first day of the week. 

It is equally obvious, that the meeting spoken of in 
this passage, as occurring at Troas, on this day, was 
according to established custom, and not a special or 



PAUL AT TROAS. 143 

occasional meeting called because of Paul's departure 
on the morrow. A strictly-literal rendering of the 
passage makes this quite clear; thus — "Upon the 
fii'st day of the week, the disciples having assembled 
to break bread, Paul preached to them, being about 
to depart on the morrow ; and continued his speech 
until midnight." Now, had this meeting been a spe- 
cial or occasional one, called because of Paul's de- 
parture on the morrow, that which, as a leading ob- 
ject, called them together, must have been to hear 
Paul preach, and the breaking of bread must have 
come in, if at all, only as incidental to that, and not 
that as incidental to their assembling to break bread. 
And is it to be supposed that Paul and his compan- 
ions remained there during the previous " seven 
days," with no meetings of the disciples, and no op- 
portunities to address them until just as they were 
going away ? Rather, is it not obvious that they had 
such meetings and such opportunities during the 
week ? Could it have been otherwise ? And must 
they not therefore have delayed their departure, until 
after the first day of the week, not for the sake of an 
opportunity to preach to the disciples, but just as 
they would now do it in Boston in similar circum- 
stances, that they might have the privilege of spending 
the Sabbath and commemorating the Lord'^s supper with 
them, at their regular season of public ivorship on that 
dayl-^ 

Moreover, had the meeting in question been an oc- 
casional one, and the leading object of it therefore to 

* Acts xxi. 4 records a similar tarry of Paul and his com- 
panions at Tyre, for "seven days/' — doubtless for the same 
reason. 



144 THE CHANGE. 

hear Paul preach, its record must have run thus — 
" Upon the first day of the week, the disciples having 
assembled to hear Paul preach, because he was about 
to de[)art on the morrow, they took that opportunity to 
break bread, or celebrate the Lord's supper." This 
would have made the latter truly incidental to the 
former, and have given a true account of the matter, 
on this supposition. Such, however, is not the record. 
li is just the reverse. It is, that " Upon the first day 
of the week, the disciples having assembled to break 
bread, or celebrate the Lord's supper, Paul took that 
opportunity to preach.''^ This makes the preaching 
incidental to their assembling for the observance of 
the supper, and it presents their assembling as the 
usual custom of the church. It is as if the writer 
had said, "Upon the first day of the week, the dis- 
ciples having assembled, according to custom, to 
celebrate the Lord's supper, Paul took that opportu- 
nity to preach to them, as he was about to leave on 
the morrow ; and, on the same account also, he con- 
tinued his Sj3eech until midnight, when the accident 
occurred, which is afterv/ards narrated." How plain, 
then, that this was the regular weekly meeting of the 
church for public religious worship, and that it was 
held as a matter of established custom on each re- 
turning first or Lord's day ! 

(2.) Paul says, (I Cor. xvi. 1, 2,) "Now, concerning 
the collection for the saints, as I have given order to 
the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the 
first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him 
in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no 
gatherings when I come." The laying up in store 
spoken of, was not, of course, laying up in store at 



CHURCH AT CORINTH, 145 

home; for that would in no respect do away the 
necessity of " gatherings " when Paul came. This 
could be prevented onlj^ by their putting their contri- 
butions into some public common store, where they 
would be ready for the apostle on his arrival — in 
other words, into the public common treasury of the 
church. The contribution was for the poor of the 
church. It would be made most fittingly^ only when 
the members of the church were generally assembled 
to commemorate, by the observance of the supper, 
the love of that common Lord, who, though rich, for 
their sakes became poor. It could be made most con- 
veniently^ only at those times and on those occasions 
when they were most generally together ; i. e. at their 
seasons of public worship. It could be made regu- 
larly^only at the regular and established seasons of such 
worship. It was to be made, as the passage shows, 
on the first day of every week. How, then, can we 
avoid the conclusion, that this, above all other days, 
was the regular and established day for public reli- 
gious worship ? Why the injunction — an injunction 
extending to all the churches — to make the collec- 
tion on this rather than some other day of the week, 
except that this, in distinction from all others, was the 
regular religious day of the churches, and therefore 
the day when they would be most generally and reg- 
ularly assembled, and be able most conveniently to 
make it ? 

Place, now, these testimonies together; and do they 
not prove, beyond dispute, (1.) that the early Christians 
were in the habit of meeting for religious instruction 
and worship, the celebration of the Lord's supper, and 
the collection of charity on the first day of the week? 
12 



146 THE CHANGE. 

and, (2.) that this was not an occasional occurrence, but 
the regular, universal, and distinctive custom of the 
churches? Examine the witnesses. So far as the 
Scripture testimony is concerned, it is plain that the 
custom obtained, as a regular and established one, in 
Jerusalem, in Troas, among all the churches of Gala- 
tia, and in Corinth. As to the other testimony, the 
writers lived in various and remote countries — Barna- 
bas and Justin, in Palestine; Pliny, (while proconsul,) 
in Bithynia ; Tertullian and Cyprian, in Libya ; Dio- 
nysius, in Greece ; those to whom he wrote, in Italy ; 
Irenseus, in Gaul ; Ignatius, in Syria, &c. They lived, 
too, at different periods during the second and third 
centuries. They all agree in respect to the preva- 
Jence of the custom in their country and time. This 
settles the fact of its universality. They agree also 
that it was peculiar to and distinctive of Christians — 
that it was a new custom, begun and identified with 
Christianity, and unknown before. Indeed, to such an 
extent was it the distinctive peculiarity or badge of 
discipleship, that their persecutors, instead of asking 
whether they were Christians, determined that point 
by asking whether they kept the Lord's day ! And 
the answer they received was, " We are Christians, 
and therefore we cannot but keep it" — as if they had 
said, "The observance of the day, in honor of our 
Lord, and our religion are identical ; the one is but 
the badge or public profession of the other, and we 
can therefore no more omit the one than we can give 
up the other." The existence, universality, and dis- 
tinctiveness of the custom in question, during the 
first three centuries, is, then, beyond dispute. The re- 
ligious observance of the first day of the week, as 



APOSTOLIC SANCTION. 147 

Lord's day, in honor of Jesus Christ, was as universal 
as the church itself. It was also as distinctive a 
badge of Christians, as the followers and worshippers 
of Jehovah-Savior, as the observance of the former 
Sabbath had been of the Jews, as the servants and 
worshippers of Jehovah-Creator. 

But whence came this new and distinctive custom ? 
By what authority gained it such general and univer- 
sal prevalence ? Not of accident, plainly ; nor yet of as- 
sumption. For had it been from either of these, there 
must have been diversity in the custom, not wide- 
spread and universal uniformity. The accident or 
the assumption, whichever it might be, would not 
have been the same, the world over. The custom 
began, as we have seen, with Christianity, and spread 
wherever that did. Whence could it have originated, 
and by what authorit}^ could it have so spread, except 
from the origin and by the authority which gave 
being and prevalence to Christianity herself? 

Besides, it was always the custom of the apostles, 
particularly of Paul, to expose and correct whatever 
was wrong in the churches. If he found the Gala- 
tians or the Hebrews falling off to Judaism, he at 
once wrote them au epistle to correct their error. If 
he found the Corinthians glorying in men, — in Paul, 
or Apollos, or Cephas, — or tolerating an incestuous 
person in the church, or perverting the Lord's supper, 
or conducting disorderly in their religious meetings, 
he at once corrected their errors and rebuked theu^ 
sins. Now, had the regular religious observance of 
the first day of the week been a relic of Judaism, or 
a priestly assumption, or even an accidental custom 
inconsistent at all with the genius and spirit of Chris- 



148 THE CHANGE, 

tiaiiity, is it to be believed that he would not as read- 
ily have corrected this error, or denounced this sin ? 
But did he do it ? So far from it, we find him at 
Troas actually participating in its observance himself 
— nay, to all appearance, delaying his journey for 
several days, that he may have the privilege of doing 
it ! Nor have we a solitary hint from him, here or 
elsewhere, that there was any thing wrong, Judaistic, 
or anti-Christian in it. And what is this but apostolic 
sanction ? Moreover, when he writes to the Corinth- 
ians, in the very Epistle in which he corrects so many 
other errors and reproves so many other faults, so far 
from blaming them for their regular observance of 
the first day of the week as a day of public religious 
worship, he directs them, as he had before directed 
all the churches of Galatia, to do that, in time to come, 
which they could not do except as they kept up the 
custom. The whole direction about the regular 
weekly collection went on the assumption that the 
custom of the regular weekly meeting was to be per- 
manent. In giving the direction, then, to make a regu- 
lar weekly collection on the first day of the week, 
Paul virtually directed them to keep up their regular 
weekly meeting for public worship, at which the col- 
lection was to be made. The ordering of the one 
was virtually an ordering to pei^sist in the other. And 
what is this but apostolic appointjnent ? It is clear^ 
then, that the observance of the first day of the week, 
as their regular and distinctive religious day, was 
the general and established custom of the primitive 
churches, and that in this custom they had apostolic 
sanction and authority, and in these, the sanction and 
authority of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE PROOF-TEXTS OF OPPOxNENTS. 

The favorite proof-texts of the opponents of the 
Sabbath only confirm the view we have taken. 
These texts are, Col. ii. 16, 17, " Let no man, therefore, 
judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a 
holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath- 
days ; which are a shadow of things to come, but 
the body is of Christ;" and Rom. xiv. 5, " One man 
esteemeth one day above another ; another esteemeth 
every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded 
in his own mind." 

These passages are quoted as if they had reference 
primarily and especially to the question of the Sab- 
bath as now agitated. It is assumed that the meaning 
of the apostle is this — "Let no man judge or cen- 
sure you in regard to the observance of the old 
Jewish or seventh day Sabbath, or any of the other 
Jewish feasts or ceremonials ; for they are all only a 
shadow which is fulfilled in Christ, and are therefore 
now no longer obligatory. And, in respect to the 
observance of the first, or indeed of any particular 
day, as Sabbath, one man esteemeth one day, as, for 
instance, the first, above another ; another esteemeth 
every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded 
in his own mind, and observe one day, or another, or 
13 * 



150 THE CHANGE, 

none, as he chooses." Such, 1 say, is assumed to be 
their meaning ; for no argument is ever attempted to 
piwe it. But such is not their meaning. So far from 
it, they either have no reference to the seventh or the 
first day Sabbath, but only to the other Jewish fes- 
tivals or Sabbaths, or they declare simply, that the 
seventh day Sabbath is no longer obligatory, and do 
it in circumstances which make it a virtual declara- 
tion that the Lord's day, or first day Sabbath, is ob- 
ligatory. This will be apparent as we proceed. 

In the apostolic age, the first and the seventh day 
of the week had each its appropriate and distinctive 
name, which Tiame was never applied to the other. The 
former was called rif-dqa avgLaxri, i. e. '^Lord's day,^'^ 
and never Sabbath. The latter was called ad66u' 
To/^, i. e. Sabbath, and never Lord's day. This 
is obvious from the passages, from various ecclesias- 
tical writers, quoted on pp. 134, 135. Moreover, this 
distinction of name was kept up for a long period. 
Professor Stuart, of Andover, (Gurney on the Sab- 
bath, p. 114,) says, "It was not until the party in the 
Christian church had becoiiie extinct, or nearly so, 
who pleaded for the observance of the seventh day, or 
Jewish Sabbath, as well as of the Lord's day, that 
the name Sabbath began to be given to the first day 
of the week." As late as the fourth century, the 
names were as distinct from each other as the days. 

That there was a party in the primitive church, 
who urged the observance of both days, is a simple 
historic fact. The Ebionites were of this class, 
" They," says Theodoret, " keep the Sabbath^^ (seventh 
day) " according to the Jewish law, and sanctify the 
hordes day " (first day) " in like manner as we do." In- 



TEXTS OB^ OPPONENTS. 151 

deed, so prevalent was this paity at one time, and so 
superstitious, withal, in their observance of the seventh 
day, that to counteract it, the Council of Laodicea, 
about A. D. 350, passed a decree, saying, " It is not 
proper for Christians to Judaize, and to cease from 
labor on the Sabbath," (seventh day ;) " but they ought 
to work on this day, and to put especial honor" {tiqo 
TL/LiibpTeg) " upon the Lord's dayj'' (first day) " by refrain- 
ing from labor, as Chiistians, If any one be found 
Judaizing, let him be anathematized." 

That such a party should arise, especially among 
the converts from Judaism, was most natural, Chris- 
tianity itself was but the substance, of which J udaism 
was the shadow or type. It was indeed the same re- 
ligion, only under a new dispensation — that of Mes- 
siah come, instead of that of Messiah typified and ex- 
pected. Moreover, the attachment of the Jew to the 
religion of his fathers was intense and proverbial. How 
natural, then, that he should cling to old rites and 
ceremonies, even after his reception of Messiah ! How 
prone such converts were to fall back upon these 
observances, and even to place reliance on them as 
grounds of salvation, is obvious from the Epistles to 
the Galatians and the Hebrews. Even Peter, (Gal. ii. 
11 — 14,) with all his visions on the subject, was too 
feeble to stem the current. 

In these circumstances, the question of the obser- 
vance of Jewish rites and ceremonies vv^ould be nat- 
urally and continually coming up ; at one time, in 
regard to circumcision ; at another, in respect to 
meats and drinks ; at anothei-, in respect to religious 
feasts and holy days ; and among the rest, in respect 
to the seventh day Sabbath. But vsdienever the ques- 



152 THE CHANGE. 

tion came up, whether m reference to one or all of 
these, the only answer that could be given was sub- 
stantially this : — As symbols or types, these things 
are all fulfilled in Christ. Their observance is there- 
fore no longer obligatory. As such they are at an 
end — the shadow having given place to the sub- 
stance ; Messiah typified, to Messiah come. At the 
same time, as, in the case of circumcision, for in- 
stance, or that of the religious observance of partic- 
ular days, or abstmenbe from particular meats, there 
is nothing wicked in the things themselves, if one 
thinks he must do them, therefore, to satisfy any 
scruples of mind you may have, you can observe 
them if you wish — provided alw ays, that you do it 
as Christians, and not as Jews, and therefore never 
place any reliance on their observance for your sal- 
vation, and never attempt to bind the conscience of 
others in respect to them. Observed with this con- 
dition, they are, in themselves, harmless, and may be 
observed or not, as you severally choose. But the 
moment you go to placing reliance on their obser- 
vance for salvation, "Ye are fallen from grace," (Gal. 
V. 4 ;) you have rejected Christ come in your reliance 
on Christ typified; and, (Gal. iv. 21, and v. 2, 4,) "Tell 
me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not 
hear the law ? Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if 
ye be circumcised," and go to relying on that for sal- 
vation, "Christ shall profit you nothing. Christ is 
become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you 
are justified by the law. Ye are fallen from grace." 
No more may you bind the conscience of your broth- 
er in the case. " Who art thou that judgest another 
man's servant," and presumest to condemn him in 



TEXTS OF OPPONENTS. 153 

matters which his master does not make obligatory, 
but in respect to which each is allowed to " be fully 
persuaded in his own mind " ? In tliese things no 
man may "judge " another. See, then, that ye neither 
"judge" others, nor allow them to "judge " you in 
respect to them. 

This, indeed, was just the question that came up, 
and just the answer that Paul gave to it in the pas- 
sages now in question, and so often miVquoted as 
proof-texts against the divine authority of the Lord's 
DAT, or Christian Sabbath. It would seem, (Col. ii. 
14 — 23,) that certain persons wished to make the 
Colossians "subject to" (Jevnsh) "ordinances" about 
" meat, and drink, and a holy day," &c., and that they 
even went so far as to insist that their observance 
was obligatory, and to condemn and censure those who 
did not observe them. To this the apostle replied, 
These were but "a shadow of things to come, but 
the body is of Christ." He therefore has "blotted 
out the hand-writing of ordinances thsit was SigdAnst us, 
nailing it to his cross," so that it is now no longer 
chligatory, "Let no man therefore judge you" in 
respect to any of its requirements — " in meat, or in 
drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new 
moon, or of the Sabbath days." 

The same leaven was at work among the Romans. 
The apostle met it m the same way — "Who art 
thou that judgest another man's sei-vant ? To his own 
master he standeth or falleth. Yea," in the present 
case, and in respect to the matters now in question, 
"7ie," the Christian, shall not fall at all; "he shall be 
holden up ; for God is able to make him stand." For 
instance, " One man esteemeth one day above an- 



154 THE CHANGE. 

Other," and is therefore disposed to keep particular 
days holy, or to observe them as religious festivals : 
" another esteemeth every day," and does not feel un- 
der any obligation to keep particular days. Now, the 
true Christian doctrine, in respect to these matters, 
is, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own 
mmd." If he thinks he ought to observe particular 
days, let him ; if he thinks their observance is not 
obligatoiy, and wishes to act accordingly, let him. 
There is no harm in either case, provided he act in 
each as a Christian. For the Christian, "that regard- 
eth the da}^' if* he does it as a Christian, and not as 
a Jew, " regardeth it unto " the honor of " the Lord " 
Jesus Christ ; and, on the other hand, the Christian, 
" that regardeth not the day," does it with a view to the 
same end, the honor of the Lord Jesus — " to the Lord 
he doth not regard it." Just so with regard to eating 
or not eating particular meats. Let every Christian do 
as he pleases in the case. At the same time, (v. 13,) let 
no one, in these indifferent matters, " put a stumbling- 
block, or an occasion to fall, in his brother's way." 
True, (v. 14,) "there is nothing unclean of itselfj" and 
so far you may eat what meats you please ; neverthe- 
less, (v. 15,) "if thy brother," the Jewish convert, "be 
grieved with " your eating all kinds of " meat," and 
you thereby put a stumbling-block, or an occasion of 
offence, in his way, "thou walkest not charitably" 
towards him, and your eating, however innocent in 
itself, is therefore (v. 20) " evil." For, according to 
the charity of the gospel, (v. 21,) "It is good neither 
to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby 
thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made 
weak." 



TEXTS OF OPPONENTS. 155 

Such, obviously, are the drift and import of the 
passages. I remark, then, (1.) it is plain that the 
apostle is here contending with those who w^ere 
clamorous for the continued and obligatory obser- 
vance of the Mosaic ritual. It was purely a question 
about Jewish " ordinances." In Colossians, indeed, it 
is so stated. Hence, too, the reference, in the text 
and context, to meats, and drinks, and new moons, and 
holy days, as well as Sabbaths. The apostle's decision 
was, that such obsei*vance was not obligatory, though 
on certain conditions to be allowed to the Jewish con- 
vert, and tolerated by the Gentile. It is therefore 
altogether probable, that the " Sabbaths " spoken of 
in the first passage (Colossians) were not the seventh 
day Sabbath, but only the other and ceremonial Sab- 
baths. At all events, the first day or Christian Sab- 
bath was not refen^ed to at all, for that was then 
known only as "the first day of the week," or "Lord's 
day," and w-as never called Sabbath until centuries 
afterward. Be those "Sabbaths," then, what they 
might, deciding that they were not obligatory, was not 
deciding that the Lord's day was not. 

The same is true of the passage in Romans. The 
entire context shows that the question at issue, and 
the apostle's decision of it, were the same as in the 
other case. Moreover, what proof is there that the 
" day " spoken of was a SahhatJi of any kbid ? The 
term " Sabbath " does not occur at all in the text or 
context. For aught that appears in them, the " day " in 
question may have been some holy or feast day, not a 
Sabbath. It is but probability to suppose that it was 
any Sabbath day whatever, ceremonial, seventh day, 
or first. It is sheer assumption to suppose that it was 



156 THE CHANGE, 

the first or seventh day Sabbath, rather than the cere- 
monial Sabbaths/ If the day or days were some 
Sabbath, the whole drift and import of the passage 
point to the ceremonial Sabbaths, not to the seventh 
day Sabbath, nor to the first, as the Sabbaths in ques- 
tion. All that can be fairly argued from the passage 
is, that Christians were at liberty to be fully persuaded 
in their own minds in respect to the observance of 
ceremonial feast days or Sabbaths, and to observe 
them or not, as they chose. There is not a particle 
of evidence, that the apostle had his eye on any other 
day whatever. To suppose that he had, and that that 
day was the seventh or the first day Sabbath, is not 
ODly a groundless assumption, but foreign entirely to 
the scope of the apostle's argument. And to suppose 
that the seventh day Sabbath, or the first, were in- 
cluded among the others as ceremonials, and so set 
aside, is to beg the whole question about their being 
ceremonials. Nay, were it even admitted that the 
seventh day Sabbath was so, and was therefore set 
aside with the rest, it by no means follows that the 
" Lord's day," or first day Sabbath, was. The cere- 
monial Sabbaths, including the seventh day, if you 
will, may all have ceased to be obligatory, and yet the 
obligation to observe the Lord's day remained in full 
force. In deciding, then, that they had ceased to be 
obligatory, the apostle by no means decided that the 
Lord's day had. As well may you say, that the de- 
cision that eating certain meats, and abstaining from 
others, is no longer obligatory, was a decision that the 
observance of the Lord's supper was not obligatory. 
The truth is, the question of the observance or non- 
observance of the Lord's supper, or the Lord's day, 



TEXTS OF OPPONENTS. 157 

was not the question at issue in either of these cases, 
and therefore not the question decided in either. 
The argument from these passages for the non-ob- 
servance of the fii'st day of the week as Sabbath is 
therefore groundless. Neither passage has any refer- 
ence whatever to that question. The most that can 
be made of them, on the most liberal interpretation, 
is a decision that the seventh day Sabbath, in com- 
mon with the ceremonial Sabbaths, was no longer 
obligatoiy. 

But such a decision, in the cu'cumstances, was a 
virtual decision that the Lord's day was obligatory. 
What were the circumstances ? First, that the first 
day of the week, as we have seen, was universally and 
religiously observed in the primitive church, and that 
it was observed and known as " Lord's day." Second, 
that its observance was every where regarded as obli- 
gatory — how else could there have been such a gen- 
eral uniformity in regard to its actual observance ? 
Such uniformity did not obtain touching circumcision 
or the observance of the seventh day Sabbath, which 
some of the eai'ly disciples advocated, but which were 
to others of doubtful authority and obligation. The 
universal observance of the Lord's day in the primi- 
tive church, like their observance of baptism and the 
Lord's supper, is proof of a universal conviction that 
such observance was obligatory. Indeed, among all 
the questions and controversies that arose in the first 
ages of the church about the continued observance 
of the seventh day Sabbath, — and they were many, — 
it is not known that the propriety of observing Lord's 
day was ever questioned. Professor Stuart (Gurney, 
p. 115) says, "There appears," on this point, "never 
14 



158 THE CHANGE. 

to have been any question among any class of the early 
Christians, so far as 1 have been able to discover. Even 
the Ebionites, who kept the Sabbath (seventh day) 
according to the Jewish law, kept also the Lord's 
day. All wera agreed, then, in the obligation to keep 
the Lord's day. Now, to raise the question, in these 
circumstances, whether the seventh day Sabbath 
should be kept or not, was to ask, not whether the 
fii'st day was to be kept, — for that was settled, — nor 
whether the seventh was to be observed in preference 
to or in place of the first, —for this too was settled, — 
but mtist the seventh be also observed. And to decide, 
as, on the supposition before us, the apostle did, that it 
need not also be observed, — i. e. was not also ohligatori/y 
— was to decide that the other, viz. the Lord's day, was 
obligatory. The conclusion, then, is certain, either that 
the passages in question refer only to the Jewish cere- 
monial Sabbaths, not including the seventh day Sab- 
bath, and therefore have no bearing whatever on the 
question of the Sabbath as now agitated ; or that, in de- 
claring the seventh as well as the ceremonial Sabbaths 
no longer obligatory, they virtually declare that the 
first day Sabbath, or Lord's day, is obligatory. In either 
case, the argument from them to the non-observance 
of Lord's day is vaua." 



CHAPTER XV. 

TESTIMONY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

Early and authentic ecclesiastical history confirms 
the view now presented. It states, indeed, in terms, 
that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to 
the first day of the week, by authority of Christ him- 
self; and also that the mode of keeping the one was 
transferred, so far as the genius of Christianity and 
the nature of the case would allow, to the other. 
Thus Clement of Alexandria (A. D. 192) says, "A 
Christian, according to the command of the gospel, 
observes the Lord's day»'* So that its observance, in- 
stead of being an accident, or a relic of Judaism, or 
in any way anti-Christian, was " according to the com- 
mand of the gQspeV Athanasius also, (A. D. 326,) re- 
nouncing the authority of the seventh day Sabbath, 
says, (De Semente, Ed, Colon. Tom. L p. 1060,) 
"The Lord himself hath changed the day of the 
Sabbath to Lord's day." The testimony of Kusebius 
is still more to the purpose. He was born about 
A. D. 270, and died about 340. Mosheim says, he 
was "a man of vast reading and erudition." Till 
about forty years of age, he lived in great intimacy 
with the mai'tyr Pamphilus, a learned and devout 
man of Cesarea, and founder of an extensive library 



160 THE CHANGE 

there, to which Eu^ebius had free access. Eusebiiis, 
as all admit, was an impartial as well as learned his- 
torianr He searched more thoroughly into the cus- 
toms and antiquities of the church, than any other 
man in the early ages, and at Cesarea and elsewhere 
had access to the best helps for acquiring correct in- 
formation. He is, by way of eminence, the ancient 
historian of the church. His testimony on the sub- 
ject before us is contained in his commentary on the 
Psalms, printed in Montfaucon's CoUectio Nova Pa- 
trum, and is as follows : — ^ 

In commenting on Ps. xxii. 29, he says, " On each 
day of our Savior's resurrection," (i. e, each first day 
of the week,) " which is called Lord^s day, we may see 
those who partake of the consecrated food and that 
body " (of Christ) " which has a saving efficacy, after 
the eating of it, bowing down to him." pp. 85, 86. 

Again, on Ps. xlvi. 5, he says, " I think that he " (the 
Psalmist) " describes the morning assemblies, in which 
we are accustomed to convene throughout the worldJ^ 
p. 195. 

On Ps. lix. 16, he says, " By this is prophetically 
signified the service which is performed very early 
and every morning of the resurrection-day," (i. e. the 
first day of the week,) " throughout the whole world,^^ 
p. 272. 

Again, Ps. xcii., which is entitled " A Psalm or Song 
for the Sabbath-day,''^ he refers to the Lord's day, and 
says, " It exhorts to those things which are to be done 

* This testimony is given by Professor Stuart, Andover, in 
Gurney on the Sabbath, App. B. 



! 



MADE BY CHRIST. 161 

Gil resurrection-day." Then, observing that the pre- 
cept for the Sabbath was originally addressed to the 
Jews, and that they had often violated it, he adds, 
"Wherefore, as they rejected it," (the sabbatical com- 
mand,) "THE WORD," (Christ,) "hytheMw Cove- 
nant, TRANSLATED and TRANSFERRED THE 
FEAST OF THE SABBATH TO THE MORN- 
ING LIGHT, and gave us the symbol of true rest, viz. 
THE SAVING LORD'S DAY, the first'' (day) «o/ the 
light, in which the Savior of the world, after all his 
labors among men, obtained the victory over death, 
and passed the portals of heaven, having achieved a 
work superior to the six days' creation." 

This establishes the fact that the transfer of the 
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week 
was made hy Christ himself, and that, so transferred, 
under the name of "Lord's day," it was observed 
throughout the Christian world. The commentary pro- 
ceeds — "On this day, which is the first" (day) "of 
light and of the true Sun, we assemble, after an in- 
terval of six days, and celebrate holy and spiritual Sab- 
baths, even all nations redeemed by him throughout the 
ivorld, and c?o those things according to the spiritual law, 
which were decreed for the pnests to do on the Sab- 
bath ; for we make spiritual offerings and sacrifices, 
which are called sacrifices of praise and rejoicing; 
we make incense of a good odor to ascend, as it is 
said, *Let my prayer come up before thee as in- 
cense.' Yea, we also present the show-bread, reviv- 
ing" (by the observance of the Lord's supper) "the re- 
membrance of our salvation, the blood of sprinkling, 
which is the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins 
14* 



162 THE CHANGE. 

of the world, and Which purifies our souls. ...... More- 
over, we are diligent to do zealously, on that day, 
the things enjomed in this psaltn ; by word and work 
making confession to the Lord, and singing in the 
name of the Blost High. In the morning, also, with 
the first rising of our light, we proclaim the mercy 
of God toward us ; also his truth by night, exhibiting 
a sober and chaste demeanor ; and all things whatsoever 
that it ivas duty to do on the Sabbath,'^^ (seventh day,) 
"THESE WE HAVE TRANSFERRED TO THE 
LORD'S DAY, as more appropriately belonging to it, 
because it has a precedence, and is first in rank, and more 
honorable than the Jewish Sabbath. For on that " (the 
first) " day, in making the world, God said. Let there 
be light, and there was light ; and on the same " (first) 
" day, the Sun of righteousness arose upon our souls. 
Wherefore it is delivered to us " (handed down by tradi- 
tion) " tJmt we should meet together on this day ; and it is 
ordered that we should do those things announced in 
this psalm." Subsequently he adds, "This Scripture 
teaches " (that we are to spend the Lord's day) " in 
leisure for religious exercises^^ [nov S^sioji' aavJcTEoji',) 
'•'and in cessation and vacation from all bodily and 
mortal ivorJcs — which the Scriptures call 'Sabbath^ 
and *re5^.-" 

This touches, with equal explicitness, the mode of 
keeping the day, and shows that, so far as the genius 
of Christianity and the nature of the case would al- 
low, the mode of its observance, as well as the insti- 
tution itself, was transferred from the one day to the 
other. Lord's day was, and was " ordered " to be, a 
day for the cessation of ordinary labors, and for pri- 



MADE BY CHRIST. 163 

vate and public religious instructipn and worship, 
just as truly as was the old seventh day Sabbath. 
It was, in a word, the original institution, in its spii'- 
itual and essential elements, transferred by Christ 
himself to another day, and observed throughout the 
Christian world. The institution was the same. 
The mode of its observance, saving what of its former 
mode had been typical, was also the same. The day 
only was changed — changed by him who was at 
once "Head of the Church," "Lord of the Sabbath," 
£md " God over all, blessed forever." 

Such, then, is the argument for the change of the 
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. 
The change is just what we should expect in the 
event of there being any ; it is just what the circum- 
stances of the case demand ; Christ, as Lord of the 
Sabbath and Head of the Church, had the right to 
make the change ; his example shows that he did not 
intend its abrogation, as an institution, but its per 
petuity, with a change in the day of its observance : 
the same right he had to regulate the institutions and 
order of his church he gave to the apostles ; they, in 
their turn, gave their sanction and authority to the 
obsei-vance of the first day of the week as Sabbath, 
as is proved by the whole tenor of Scripture and 
ecclesiastical history; and ecclesiastical history tes- 
tifies, in so many words, that Christ himself "trans- 
ferred" the Sabbath to the first day of the week, and 
that, so transferred, under the name of " Lord's day," 
it was observed throughout the then Christian world. 
It cannot be doubted, then, that under the Christian 
dispensation, the first day of the week has been set 



164 THE CHANGE MADE BY CHRXST. 

apart, by divine appointnient, to be observed, in place 
of the seventh, as the Christian Sabbath. As such, 
it is an institution of Christianity. It is part and par- 
cel of Christianity. Like the Lord's supper, or the 
institution of maiTiage, it v^rill live while Christianity 
does. Obligatory now, it will be obligatory always, 
and, in its regular observance, will be every where, as 
with the early Christians, a badge of discipleship 
itself. 



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